Chapter #20An Escape and a Conference by: Seuzz   Conniff can land on her feet, especially since you can arrange a relatively soft landing for her. Not too soft, though, for you don't want to raise suspicions.
You grab at a security guard while making your way back to Dey's on-site living suite. "Get a team and collect the female prisoner back in 235," you tell him. "Strip her and drive her into the country. I don't care where. Somewhere you can dump her in a field."
"Yes sir."
You grab his arm. "And I don't mean dump her. No shooting, no punching. Just let her go. Make sure she's hooded until you get to the drop-off point."
"Yes sir," he says again, but looks dubious. You don't explain, though. It would be out of character.
* * * * *
Dey manages the project center from a set of rooms in an annex: a spacious office suite containing a living space, bedroom, kitchenette and bathroom. He spends a lot more time here than at his luxury apartment, much to his own chagrin. But you don't get a luxury apartment unless you perform for Fane, and you can't perform if you're not on-site. So Fane has also given Dey this rather spartan set of rooms.
You strip and toss the clothes carelessly into a hamper; in the bathroom, taped to the back of a vanity drawer, is the throwaway cell phone Dey uses for calls he doesn't want Fane monitoring. Probably they do anyway, but Dey only uses it to order up prostitutes and cocaine. Even if Fane knows about it, they wouldn't overly care, and you're gambling that Fane doesn't pay much attention to this number even if they know of it. They're sinister, but also a bureaucracy. You turn on the shower, and dial Frank.
It's ten rings before he picks up. "Yeah," he grunts.
"Hey man. You heard from your brother or Rosalie?" you ask. "How's your niece?"
"I talked to them an hour ago," he replies after a pause. "You sound a little different, and this isn't the number I was--"
"Just a touch of a cold," you say. It's the other half of the pass phrase you and Frank use to signal each other when you've made a switch out of his sight. "And this is a number I use for making special deliveries. I need you guys to pick something up for me. I'll arrange to meet you beforehand, because it'll be a handful." You give him the address of Dey's apartment building.
"Ritzy part of town," Frank murmurs.
"It does in a pinch. There's an Indian restaurant across the street, half a block down. I'll find you there."
You hang up and hop in the shower long enough to rinse off. In the bedroom you open up Dey's emergency wardrobe: underwear, slacks, socks, shirt, jacket, and shoes, all specially sealed up in plastic so there's no question of Fane putting tracking devices on them. Dey knows his employers well, and has preparations for when he wants to disappear on them.
Dey is good enough that you wish he wasn't working for them. But Fane wouldn't be the danger they are if their employees weren't so good.
You will have to carry Dey's keys, wallet and jewelry, so you can't be sure you're totally clean, but you can leave them in the car when you meet your colleagues. After you're dressed--the work of two minutes--you pack up Dey's laptop and stop by the security office to make sure your orders regarding Conniff have been carried out, then head down to the garage, where you collect his Mercedes and drive off into the London night.
* * * * *
It's an hour before Frank and Hal show up; you watch from across the street, where you're parked, as they go into the restaurant. Then you shift into the face of Thom Conrad and follow them in. "Conrad" is one of your rarely used faces--a weary-looking forty-year-old who doesn't stand out in a crowd--but it's one that Frank should recognize, even though Conrad looks a little out of place in a jacket and slacks. "Guys," you say, shaking hands with them as though you're only acquaintances rather than friends. "Have any problems finding this place?"
"Hal drove," Frank says grumpily. "I'd forgotten what an adventure that can be." There's a little more small talk as the maître d' leads your trio to a table. You order drinks, and then lean in toward each other for the meat of the meeting.
"I'm out of OIC," you say, "and into Fane." Hal's eyes light up. "I got hijacked and came this close to being dissected." You pinch your fingers together. "But I turned tables on them and scored us a neat little boodle. I got us a laptop, a head full of intelligence, and two of their prize assets. It's the latter we need to collect."
"What kind of assets?" Frank asks.
"People. A scientist and an agent. I arranged for them to wait for us in an apartment in that building across the street."
"That doesn't sound like something an OIC guy could manage," Frank says. His eyes narrow. "What have you been up to?"
"I laid hold of a Fane exec. Not just any exec, either. It's one of the managers on Project Dark Stars."
"Coo!" Hal breathes softly. "What is it?"
"I'm not totally certain, because they've got it solidly compartmentalized, but I can make a pretty good guess." You drop your voice to a bare whisper. "I think they're making Stellae."
Your colleagues' faces grow long and astonished. "How the fuck are-- What do you mean? You don't mean they're--" Frank's expression grows very hard. "Duplicating us, somehow?"
"No, not us. They don't know who we are. Or, if they do, it's in a compartment I haven't penetrated. But they're working on a kind of essentia mimicry. That's also just a guess on my part, because the guy I grabbed--"
"Who did you grab?" Hal asks.
"Julian Dey. D-E-Y. Know the name?" Hal shakes his head. "I'm not surprised. His cover is warehouse manager. There's a distribution center down by the river, and he pretends to run it. But it hides one of their research stations. Dey's in charge of Project Diana, which is a sub-unit of Dark Stars."
"So what makes you think it's a Stellae-type operation?"
"Because of the agent Dey is running. Her name is Paige Knotts. She's been modified to mimic Sulvan powers. Don't ask me how it works, because Dey doesn't know the theory. His brain doesn't run along those kinds of tracks, he's only into power, money, and chesty women. But Knott's a disguise artist." You've been dreading dropping the last bit of info: "A bit like me. Shapeshifter."
Frank rears back, as you knew he would. Before you can speak, Hal lays a hold of your partner's wrist. "Keep cool, Frank," he says, but the other can't help eyeing you darkly.
"You remember that tattoo machine Joe and I recovered a few years back," you say. "They've got a model like that. Too close to be accidental. We knew those assholes stole the model they had, but it ran into a dead end. But Fane's got a model like it, and it doesn't work on golems. Or maybe it could, if they could make golems. But they use it on Paige. She's been modified so she can copy imago. It's a lot kludgier than it works with me. They have to catch the victim and put them onto the machine, then it copies a sigil, like a tattoo, onto Paige. She's covered with them, the way I am, and can bring them up to change her form. But they can't copy mental imago, so it's only a surface thing. But that's how they got me."
"Details, Will," Frank demands.
"Fane saw the same footage OIC saw, because of course IMS is one of their companies. They also got malware into OIC's system, so they know all about OIC's interest in them. They did a jujitsu move on OIC. They grabbed Trace Conniff--the woman running things locally for OIC--when she arrived in Leeds, bundled her back to London, and put Paige in for her with orders to collect you and Marta. I spotted the imposture almost immediately, because she couldn't imitate Conniff exactly--but I didn't know what was going on. Didn't really think it could be another shapeshifter. I managed to fudge you guys' trail, but Paige figured out I was onto her and took me back here to London. But I managed to get out and get a copy of her boss." You briefly describe your adventures. "I've been using Dey to spread a little sabotage. That's how I got Paige and Dr. Karol Lillis--that's the scientist who runs the technical side for Dey--to wait for us across the street."
"So what's your plan?" Frank asks.
"I'm not sure," you admit. "Lillis would be easy to handle. We could smuggle him out of the country under a mask. Maybe send him to Providence, to Nash? He's a real Werner von Braun type. 'Vunce ze rockets are up, who cares vhere zey come down.' Give him a trial and a long nap, and he might see reason. Even without a nap he and Nash would probably get along like gangbusters."
"And the shapeshifter?"
"I don't know if we can put a mask on her." You clench your fists. "We might have to do an anima transplant to keep her under control until--"
"Leave her where she is," Hal interjects. "Leave both of 'em where they are."
"What are you talking about?"
"Get rid of this Dey ass," he says. "Replace him. Will, you're perfectly positioned to--"
"You want him to infiltrate Fane?" Frank asks. "That's for Rosalie to decide."
"So call her," Hal exclaims. "This is the break we've been waiting years for!" He leans forward eagerly. "Shove the real Dey into the drink-- Alright, under a mask-- And take over for him!"  indicates the next chapter needs to be written. |
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