Chapter 65
Operatives Are Different
(Misha Tulley)
Gentle breeze.
The wind rolled past Misha as she felt alive. Her first mission, not as an operative, as she still had a long way to go before she would be cleared for that level of activity.
Instead, she would be relegated to overwatch.
Overwatch was the position Misha likely would have been assigned to, had she not demonstrated her mechanical acumen at an early age. Where she had been relegated to ship maintenance.
Still, for a first-time job being overwatch was both relatively easy and exhilarating.
The task she was given was simple, watch over Ms. Clayton, otherwise known as Operative Ursala Jarnic, while Ms. Clayton worked from Misha’s list of assigned targets.
Still despite being literal miles away from Ms. Clayton, Misha couldn’t help but feel her heart pounding as she understood the importance of her role in this mission.
“As an operative, the most important piece that I have been missing is Overwatch. Someone to watch my back, warn me of impending dangers, and provide distractions when possible. Now I know you might think you are strong enough to conduct operations on your own, and you are. But I think it would be best for us to work as a two-person team. Together we will shore up our deficiencies and best of all, you will keep your cover as a student. There is also the fact that killing these monsters, that is directly killing them does no good for you. As you gain no bonuses, no stolen animus, and are stuck in your current position. Whereas, for whatever reason I was able to integrate with the neural upgrader, so by killing the enemy I will get stronger with each kill.” Ms. Clayton stated logically.
The argument was without a doubt the best Misha could ever ask for. With this, she would still be doing the work she always had been, she would keep her cover, and be able to root out the ancient enemies from the root. Well the worst of the ancient enemies. Misha still had reservations about killing off every Bakshee, but that was an argument to be held later.
For now, the focus was on the remaining three, Rodger, Alishia, and the local pack shaman Bruce Jacobs.
Thanks to the Surreal app, Ms. Clayton and Misha both knew the most likely places where the three would hang out. They knew the general routes taken, they even knew about the recent Shamanistic magics that had caused severe backlash to Misha.
Hearing that the main opponent was a powerful Shaman, Ms. Clayton took a different approach.
The task was simple, kill off one of the two lesser pack members and then use them to lure Bruce into lowering his guard.
While the process seemed to have too many working parts for Misha’s perspective, she had to defer to the senior.
Misha for her part made sure to give herself an alibi, as she would live stream herself working on her car. Surprisingly there was a huge following for people watching a female mechanic Live stream her working on a vehicle, while not talking.
The Live stream was twofold. First it gave her a clear alibi, for how could she legitimately be conducting an operation, while Live streaming. Second, the same internet connection she used to link her camera to the internet, was the same communication layer she piggy backed off of to first find and track Ms. Clayton.
Now that she knew what to look for, Ms. Clayton was relatively easy to find.
First, for cameras that ran on infrared spectrum, she was a clear two to three degrees higher than normal humans. Not as much as the warriors, or werewolves, who were often five degrees higher. Also, the workers were generally three or more degrees lower than standard humans. While the Rulers, they were not so easily identified, as there did not seem to be any difference between them and their body temperature, at least not from what Misha had been able to observe. Granted, this was only due to two actual people ever being noted as Rulers in Surreal, both of whom were killed early and violently in a string of unsolved murders.
Murders that Misha was fairly certain she could link back to Ms. Clayton. Or at the very least Misha was certain that she could link Ms. Clayton to the scene of the crime.
It went without question that Misha deleted all logs of Ms. Clayton and any possible relation to those crimes. Part of her told her that she would need to keep that data, in case things went wrong with their Operative and Overwatch relationship. Though Misha figured, that should anything actually happen, it would be Misha likely dying at the hands of Ms. Clayton, or Ms. Claytons future reincarnation.
This was why Misha ultimately got rid of the evidence that could link Ms. Clayton to any of the crime areas. If there was an eventual falling out between the two, Misha was certain that the details she now used to track Ms. Clayton would prove invaluable in the future.
Stolen content alert: this content belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences.
However, Misha couldn’t help but feel odd for having the layer of protection between her and Ms. Clayton.
Logically, the distinction between them made no sense. They were both Psychers, and therefore both supposed to be on the same side. Yet, their side lost, and this Psycher had been here for centuries apparently working to undermine the eternal enemy’s chance of using this planet.
Yet, Misha couldn’t help but feel that following that form of logic was self-defeating.
Rather than trying to destroy the planet, wouldn’t it make more sense to join them and then break them apart from the inside? Misha even hinted at this.
“What if you could become a worker, I mean a werewolf. Not only would you be able to level as a Psycher, but you would also be able to level up as a werewolf. Essentially being able to level up twice for the same or equivalent amount of work. Also, you would have a lot easier time from hiding yourself if you masked your presence from within.” Misha stated.
“No, don’t you understand. Assuming that this worked, that you were somehow able to turn your current possessed vessel into a Bakshee outercoat. You would then make it so your children and future progeny would not be able to host your soul if and when you die. While I haven’t been able to possess the body of a direct family member yet, by spreading out each life and making it so each life has multiple generations of children to choose from, I increase my odds of not only survival, but also finding an ideal host.” Ms. Clayton stated.
Hearing that cold callous response, Misha realized something.
“Wait, your saying that you purposefully try to possess the body of your own children and grandchildren?”
“That is the goal, I haven’t quite perfected the process yet, but I am working on it. That said, I still have a few additional designs that I could add to continue to be relevant.” Ms. Clayton said, before staring at Misha coldly for a second.
With that glare, the intent was clear, Misha was not supposed to challenge her boss, this officer by stealing her conglomeration of organizations by introducing her own technology into the fray.
Seeing the clear challenge in her eyes, Misha held up her hands in a placating gesture. This was one that Psychers wouldn’t get, but as a fellow humanoid, the gesture was clear.
This was why, despite having found her first true Psycher, one who attempted to train her. Misha still felt the need for preservation, where she kept a layer of skepticism as a protective barrier to separate her from the Psycher.
An immortal reincarnating enemy that could appear as anyone in the future.
Realizing the threat that Ms. Clayton posed, Misha now understood the reason why so many people were afraid of the Psychers. The fact that they had all been unified under one banner for so long must have been frightening to the different species of the universe.
Still, why was she having these traitorous thoughts now?
Pausing for a moment, the reason soon became apparent.
“I have eyes on the target.” Ms. Clayton said.
Then locking into her feed, Misha both destroyed any video fragments that might get uploaded to the cloud storage servers, while using other video monitoring devices to see and track the targets.
“Feeding in resources now.” Misha replied back, her lips barely moving from below the hood of the car. For those watching her own life stream, they would see what appeared to be Misha having a hard time turning a particularly tough bolt. When in effect she was actually using the waves of energy in the internet to grab her voice, and amplify it for Ms. Clayton.
With the location identified, Misha went to work. First finding all two dozen or so video surveillance devices in the area. Everything from CCTVs on the nearby food marts, to streaming dashcams, to people on their phones, to police recording devices.
Everything was at Misha’s disposal.
Since this was their first mission together, this would be just a simple observation.
Ms. Clayton would go out, make visual contact with the targets. Then Misha would provide different feeds in real time. This way the two could find what worked, what didn’t work, what was too distracting, and be better prepared for how to conduct an actual operation together.
It came as no real surprise that Rodger, Misha’s supposed boyfriend was currently cheating on her. As he was clearly holding Alishia’s hand in the middle of an open park.
Gentle breeze.
Once again the wind blew both in the park, and a minor form of that same wind, or maybe a distant echo of the same breeze, also blew within the open door garage.
The breeze was enough to let Misha know that she was here working on her car. Which is what she did, she began taking apart her connection circuits, and using a toothbrush with her own mixture of cleaning products, began scrubbing the cords, before hooking the wires onto a stick that hung over and dipped the rest of the wire in a dense resin wax that would hopefully strengthen the outer coating of the wires. The entire process was entirely mind numbing and above all time consuming, which was why it was perfect for her live stream.
Misha did make sure to show off her own secret formula, for the camera, showing off the initial dirty cords. Cords that Misha did nothing to other than immediately dunk in the odd liquid. Once submerged, a layer of dark oils and resin washed away, almost instantly from the wires. Then picking up the sticks that she wrapped the wires over, she picked up the now clean wires and began dipping them into a second vat of solution.
While her body moved mechanically, performing the cleaning ritual that her body had done for millennia, her mind was actively engaged finding networks. Identifying nearby people, trying to use local heating markings and other indicators to identify if the people present were supernatural in nature.
Fortunately, one of the people in the park had the Surreal app already downloaded. While the app itself was not active on the phone, it was a simple task for Misha to log into the phone and quickly scan the nearby people for signs of Bakshee influences.
Unfortunately, the camera owner didn’t actually scan many people with her phone. That or if she did, there wasn’t enough time for the Surreal application’s unique use of light to identify anyone as a supernatural.
This was also something that Misha had been trying to understand. How did the application that Ms. Clayton created identify people as Bakshee. Obviously, this was some form of advanced Psycher operative knowledge. Knowledge that had been weaponized on this still evolving planet.
Then it hit Misha, the reason she always felt guarded around the Psycher Operative.
It was the fact that for whatever reason, Ms. Clayton knew that Misha herself was a Bakshee. Or at least had managed to infect her body with a form of the Bakshee. Which was noted the way her original file had been preserved and constantly brought back online, all but forcing Misha herself to go in and change the data daily.
That was likely the reason that Misha herself had felt so off around the operative, as she herself had been guarded. Even her rationale for why she would never succumb herself to the Bakshee, there was a note of bile on her face, as if she had been forced to make concessions, if only for the sake of this mission.
Realizing this, Misha finally understood why Ms. Clayton had originally gone in to this mission with the idea of it being a preparatory gesture, as it was clear that Ms. Clayton still had her own reservations about how valuable Misha was. At least, these are the thoughts that came to Misha’s mind, while she seamlessly provided a full 360 degree feed of the environment around them. The fact that there were seven other entities within the park, and none of them appeared to register as supernatural entities according to the Surreal database.
“Good work,” Ms. Clayton said, her mind apparently able to take in all the different streams of data and compartmentalize them as needed.
Hearing that Misha nodded, realizing that there might still be hope for this partnership. Even though they both had temporary hang ups, they could get along for a common enemy. In this case, it was Bakshee that were involved directly in the death of her grandmother. A concept that seemed both foreign to her, and at the same time seemed like it should be punished tenfold.
Perhaps, feeling Misha’s subdued by still present feeds of anger that were likely providing a deeper resonance to the feeds being provided to Operative Clayton, Misha shouldn’t have been surprised by Operative Clayton’s next action.
“I’m going in for the kill.” Operative Clayton said, then before Misha could really register everything that happened. The world blurred, as Ms. Clayton sprung into action.