This choice: Continue as Will Prescott • Go Back...Chapter #16Spoiler--5 by: Seuzz   "Is this girl going to be able to tell them anything?" Patterson asks.
"Deborah? Beats me," you say as you pour the coffee. "You know, these long nights are getting to me. Kips is starting to worry that there's something wrong with him."
"If he's nervous, that's useful. But this Deborah, if she's at Vulcan—"
"If she tells them something, then she tells them something," you say, trying to keep the irritable tone from your voice. "But if she tells Kips something then she tells us too, and that's also useful. That's been the toughest project to break into. That and Mimir, right?"
You don't expect an answer to that question—it's mostly rhetorical—and Steve doesn't give one. "Is there any other advantage to be had from that visit?" he says. "This is probably the only time we'll be put on a job— Excuse me, on a game—together."
You doodle on a notepad, and scribble down the names of the Diana agents still at large: Knotts, Cox, Muniz, Liu, Stoddard and Gallion. After the loss of White, Knotts is going to want to play things very close to the chest, you reflect.
So you and Steve talk over several possibilities. But it's only when he mentions the shadow-mind, and its being repaired, that you start to get an idea. "Hal and Nash were talking about feeding them a golem," you say. "One with a special sigil on it that could wreck the shadow mind."
"Hal's already got one fixed up, ready to go."
That surprises you: "When did he do that? Hal's not one for contingencies."
"I told him to make it just before we put you in. But whatever you're thinking— If you're thinking of replacing one of their agents with that golem—" His expression tightens as he tries to anticipate an idea even you've not fully formed yet. "First, we'd need to make the replacement, and then we'd need to arrange it so the fake is the one that gets put in the shadow mind. That's triple the trick of just capturing someone."
But in the time it's taken him to come up with an objection, you've seen your way to an idea. "Well, what if we don't replace one of them? What if we gave them someone? What if we gave them Greystoke?" you suggest with a grin.
"A fake Frank?"
"Sure. Think about it." You lean forward, excited by the possibility. "They capture Greystoke—I mean, they think they do, but it's just that golem. They'll shove him into the shadow-mind faster than Joe can shove his cock into--"
Steve looks dubious. "That's great for taking out the shadow-mind, but how does it get us any more of their operatives?"
"Well, there's no guarantees— I mean, fuck, Knotts threw us for a loop with that switch-play of hers this morning. But if we fed her Greystoke, I think she'd try leveraging his capture with another play. I bet she'd put his tat on someone and try an infiltration."
Steve's skepticism deepens. "Pretty risky," he says, "for her and for us. And after this morning I don't think she'd be looking to get burned again. At the very least, wouldn't she wait until she could give her agent a brain-tat to go with it? And we're not going to give her that."
You sit back and spend a very long time weighing possibilities and risks. "She knows that Greystoke and Cupcake are active, Crazy Ivan too. She's trying hard not to credit anything to Scotty. If she thought she could use Frank to round up the other two, she might try it."
"But only after putting Greystoke in the shadow-mind," he says.
"Or even without it. She might just use a tat of him to try and catch Joe or Hal, then use a tat of them to catch the third."
"I thought Dark Stars didn't want any moves made against us."
"To protect her team, she might go for it anyway. At the very least she could justify it by putting all three into the shadow-mind."
"But we don't want that."
"And we wouldn't let them. That's what fake-Frank would be for. That all by itself is a play worth making, and it's a temptation for her to feed us another operative."
You talk it over some more, but keep returning to the fact that the shadow-mind needs to be disabled. That's what finally convinces Patterson to make your suggested play. That and one other consideration: "Before we draw things down too far, we need to figure out where they've stashed Fierro. If they've still got her. If they do, I'd bet they'll put 'Greystoke' in the same facility, and that will give us a lead."
You make the trip out to the safe house in Swanley in order to transfer Frank's imago onto Hal's special golem, for you're not putting a mask on it. Rather, you put the imago directly onto the golem, so that there are no seams or cracks for Dark Stars to exploit if they try taking it apart.
The thing is coldly amused by the instructions you give it, and warns you that it might succeed in capturing you and Patterson. "Don't worry about that, just make it look good," you reply. "Steve will phone in for support before we see you, so you'll get taken down one way or another."
Continue as Terry Kipper: "Without a Trace"   | Members who added to this interactive
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