[298] 4.19 Reckoning
“So, it was a trap after all,” Nicholas says. Unlike his panic-stricken guards, Nicholas shows no signs of panic or even discomfort from his office as we inform him of the happenings of that castle a couple hours earlier.
“After all,” Chloe says. “It sounds like you were already aware that there was a trap and didn’t bother to inform us.”
“‘Suspected’ is a long way from ‘aware of,’ Miss Jacobs. And while I do understand your frustration about the incident, including your distaste of the creatures found within, can either of you honestly say that the possibility of a trap would have stopped you for one moment?”
I’m still angry, but Nicholas, true to form, always seems to know exactly what to say or do. Personal distaste for his philosophies aside, I am glad we are allies, however tenuous that alliance may be.
“You admitted that you had a suspicion that this was a trap,” I say. “We were thinking Legion, but I can admit that I have no shortage of potential enemies, including those I’m not even aware of. Wouldn’t even surprise me if someone in the U.S. intelligence apparatus decided that I was too dangerous to be left alive or some shit after I told their agent off the other day.”
“All of those are… possible, although right now my suspicion is that everything that has transpired to this point has been Legion in origin. Including the attack by the demon Fornieth two days ago.”
“Explain,” Chloe says.
Nicholas, ever the unflappable one, just sighs. “Something didn’t sit quite right after the events of this past Wednesday. Something I couldn’t put my finger on in the aftermath of that near-tragedy.”
“It was a tragedy,” Chloe cuts off. “Just because there was only one death doesn’t make what happened any less tragic. Just meant we were a little luckier.”
“As you say, Miss Jacobs. Circling back to my point, you informed me that Fornieth had claimed that you two had destroyed his lieutenant, prompting his vengeance.”
“Right,” I say. “We were thinking he was talking about Scarlett, that vampire who was setting up residence not too far away.”
“That may still be true,” Nicholas says. “We don’t have enough knowledge of the System or what those two dark forces were involved in. For all we know, they actually were working in some sort of alliance. However, the timing is too suspect. Why would this demon be so loyal to a subordinate that it would go after us in a fit of vengeance, and yet so unbothered that it waits over an entire month to do so? I’ve given the matter significant thought and the only conclusion I have been able to reach is that there was another, more proximal cause.”
“One you are unsure about,” Chloe says.
“Unfortunately, yes. My intelligence apparatus is growing, but it’s localized. What information I get from my contacts across the nation is sparse, compartmentalized.” He sighs. “I dare not speak this part publicly; please do not let these words leave this room.”
He turns to both of us with a solemn stare. Not seeing any reason why we would want to deliberately antagonize him for no personal gain— he was useful— Chloe and I agree telepathically.
He continues after I nod. “Unfortunately, not everyone in the military hierarchy understands the importance of the new order and how to adapt. They still cling to the old ways. Compartmentalization, interdependence; they want to impress uniformity, not realizing that two soldiers trained in the same way and to the same standards are going to have wildly different Skills, levels, and abilities. And that means that my knowledge, as well as my ability to access intelligence reports, is limited to what my commanders decide I need to know.”
“And you haven’t tried hacking the systems?” Chloe asks.
“Oh, I have, but– Actually, Miss Mortensen, perhaps you might have more success with it than I do.”
“Me? I’ve never tried to hack before in my life. I wouldn’t know the first thing about–”
“But you have a technology-focused class. Ethertech, yes, but we live in a magical world now. It’s possible that your glyph magic might still work on it.”
“Right now?”
Nicholas pulls a laptop out from behind his desk and turns it on. I’d’ve been amazed at how quick it starts up just half a year ago. Now, a veteran of battles with punches flying a hundred times a second, using literal magic to hack the universe, even slipping into a deeper layer of reality itself, it’s so slow it almost hurts.
“I’m a bit surprised that you’re going to be able to pull anything off the military mainframes,” Chloe says. “I would have thought the Legion would have already taken it all down, or whatever else they would have done–”
I nod in agreement.
“They did, yes,” Nicholas says. “But that took a matter of hours to complete after they hijacked our nation’s capital. More than long enough for me and others to grab crucial files and bring them into a decentralized peer-to-peer network. The problem isn’t in gaining the files, but in decrypting them.”
“Well, I’ll give it a shot,” I say. Maybe I have a chance; I had a Skill in my old life called [Anomalous Decryption] that allowed me to peek at the System pages for other people, objects… anything registered to the System. Now if only I had some sort of way to dredge up the abilities from my past life that wasn’t just ‘pray for the best and expect the worst’.
He turns the computer around and presents it to me. It’s asking for a password; I don’t dare try to brute-force it through the provided terminal, lest I lock us out. Instead, I place my hand on the computer and start threading my [Ether] into the physical circuits.
Much like people with their [Ether] channels and [Ether] cores, computers have the same. Logic gates and circuits, and processing units that convert that stream of electrical voltages— those zeroes and ones— into useful work. I start with [Unlock], letting the subtle array of changed frequencies work their literal magic into the machine and coax it to cough up its secrets. It seems to work for a moment— the screen briefly flickers, at least— and then stops.
“No dice,” Nicholas says.
“Not necessarily. I have a couple more things I’d like to try before we give up.”
I tried more than a couple more things. Thirty-three things in total, everything from trying to scrawl the [Unlock] glyph on the circuit board with a tiny chisel of my [Ether] to typing it out in the console’s command window with ASCII art. That last one was admittedly farfetched, but there didn’t seem to be any real harm in trying. It probably wouldn’t lead to permanently bricking the machine or anything. And Nicholas had backups? Right?
He better have had a backup or four… or fourteen. Four hundred. Else I was going to start questioning his judgement and fitness for command.
He doesn’t look disappointed at me. If anything, he looks relieved, as though he were hoping that the solution wouldn’t be as simple as ‘tell Seraphina to do it for me’. I would have liked it better if it had. Then I would have had leverage over him, at least for a small while.
“Chloe,” I ask silently. “Do you object if I show him the letter from your father?”
“I– No, that’s fine. If he can shed any more light on what’s going on, I don’t mind.”
“Thank you.”
“So,” I say. “I have one more question before we take our leave.”
“Ask, but before you do, I have a little gift for you.”
I smile, hoping to broach the subject tactfully and thankful I no longer had to. More Skill Books. Neither our time spent on the surface nor in the Tower had been particularly conducive to gaining too many new Skills, and with my still having several slots completely empty, I welcome this discussion with gratitude and not too many questions.
Two books, one silver, one gold. I take the silver and hand the gold one to Chloe, and both of us store our respective lootboxes away for later.
“Now then, Miss Mortensen,” Nicholas says. “Your question.”
I pull out the letter from Mr. Jacobs and hand it to the major. “The letter is unsigned, but considering its origins and its being addressed to ‘my lovely daughters’, we have no reason not to believe that it’s either from Chloe’s father, or from someone who has been leading us on as though they were him. Moreover, when we fought my own father back in Red Clay City a few months ago, he mentioned that Chloe’s father was alive and that he could tell me ‘who and what I am’. Given both, I think it’s safe to assume that this is actually from him.
“What I want to know is, what does this ‘Project Seraphina’ mean to the government? Have you heard of such a thing before?”
“Permit me to ask, Miss Mortensen, but what do you mean by ‘what it means to the government’? You make it sound like it means something to you already.”
“It does, but it’s not possible for my meaning and his meaning to be the same. Please don’t ask me to elaborate further.”
“Very well. I don’t have that answer, but unlike the other thing, this is something we might be able to pin down. Miss Jacobs, what is your father’s first name? Middle initial? Anything else we can use to make sure we’re looking for the right person?”
“Hank… er, Henry M. Jacobs, sir,” she says. “I don’t know much as far as what he does or projects or if he’s working with a contractor or the military or a research team or what.”
Nicholas starts typing at a frenetic pace, struggling not to break the keys with each finger press. “Well, as it turns out, there is a database publicly available with every government employee’s name, job title… even their salary, although some information is naturally kept confidential.” He furrows his brows, showing the same frustration I did earlier about the speed of conventional technology not keeping up with the Ether-infused world.
“Henry M. Jacobs… I’m guessing he’s not a menial laborer formerly working in Kalamazoo… Not an accountant with the IRS office down in Tallahassee. No legal background?”
“Not that I know of,” Chloe says. “Neither he nor Mom ever mentioned anything about him going to law school.”
“Ah. I think I have something. No job description given, working under the Department of Defense. Give me just a second to cross-check this with–” He switches over to another tab and starts typing in more information. “No rank, no job title. No team, no citations in any research paper, no mentions in any documents I have access to.”
“What does it mean?” I ask.
“It means whatever he was working on is so classified that the government doesn’t want anything about it getting out. The sort of black box project that’s funded with off-budget outlays, so secret that information about it doesn’t even make it to the President’s desk; God forbid the media gets ahold of it. And since it was called ‘Project Seraphina’, and you, Miss Mortensen, are also Seraphina, as is the other one, I have to conclude that it has something to do with you. Something you don’t seem keen to talk about.”
I shake my head. “Do you have any leads? Anything that might help us figure out what’s going on?”
“He’s stationed… No, it doesn’t give me that information either.” Nicholas shakes his head, a profoundly unamused expression upon his face. “Give me some time to dig into things. Can you say, oh-nine hundred tomorrow morning?”
“That’s fine,” I say. Chloe isn’t happy, but she assents anyway.
“Then I shall see you then.”