My Novel, and 100th Post

[Mage]

Okay, so @HoidWasTaken, you pointed out to me that I was coming up on 100 posts. Thanks for that. Knowing me, I probably would have blown right by that without even knowing. I couldn't think of any great memes, or unifying theory of the cosmere, to celebrate this. Instead, I figured that I might post some of the novel I am working on. It isn't fantasy (sorry). I know we are all fantasy fans. I have a fantasy series planned, but I am currently working on a sort of sci-fi, thriller, detective...it doesn't really fit in a genre, but think Mission Impossible, but in a book and with more character development (don't get me wrong, I love MI, but the characters don't really change at all, they just shoot stuff and climb things).

So, I guess for my 100th post I'll post the prologue and chapter one. Don't judge. Well, do judge. I appreciate any feedback, but this is a rough draft, so grammar feedback isn't as important to me at this point. But uh, here goes I guess:

Spoiler

Prologue

     Caesar flipped the coin into the air and then caught it again. This coin was arguably his most prized possessions. It was an ancient Roman coin, a denarius, and hadn’t been cheap. However, it was worth the cost. He wasn’t a coin collector, but had always been interested in metals. The coin was of silver, and bore the face of a Caesar of old. How he longed to return to those days, when Rome was at it highest. This was the coins greatest quality. The focus and drive it gave him to accomplish his goals

     Finally his computer loaded. In his current location he didn’t have access to his most powerful computers, so in order to run the needed program he used a laptop. The dark room lightened a little as the white background of the program appeared. Caesar began scrolling through the shipping logs. There were currently only three trucks left carrying ingredients for his destructive recepie. The last one would be arriving tomorrow.

     Caesar had made sure only to choose the most skilled drivers for the product that he was sending. Most people were good drivers, but in order to stay undetected by those who were watching out for shipments like these...well that was a trickier task. A crash, or even a flat tire could reveal himself to the Masters. The local governments wouldn’t think much about it, but the Masters, the higher, hidden government, would be on to him within hours of a mishap.

     That was why he couldn’t settle for anyone but the best drivers, the best trucks, the best containers, and the best location. The location was key. It was difficult to set up a research facility that was to be kept of the radar, but also have easy access to all the supplies that it needed. Once he found it though he took every procaution to ensure that the sattelites and cameras would turn a blind eye to the location.

     The number of miles left for the last truck slowly ticked down as Caesar clenched his hands and feet in nervousness. He could feel the victory, the glory, and the power, all within his reach now. Once the product was complete he would throw the world into chaos, and while they were struggling to recover he would deliver the killing blow. Then, when society had hit the bottom they would turn to a final option of salvation. Him. He smiled, thinking of the day when the world would again be subject to Caesar. The Masters had served their purpose for these last 1500 years, but now it was time for them to fall and Rome to again rise.

     Caesar started away from his pondering as something on the screen changed. He glanced at it, confused. The numbers on one of the truck’s logs had stopped moving. Anger began to fill within Caesar. He had given explicit instructions not to stop for anything! He quickly checked the coordinates of the truck. It was a mere 100 miles away from the lab. Of all the places for it to stop, it had to be there! Anywhere else and the shady contents could be explained away, but here, the truck would lead them right to the lab. The log blinked a new entry: TRANSMISSION FAILURE. The transmission could go to H*** for all that Caesar cared.

     Caesar stood and stormed out of the room. Someone was going to pay dearly for this mistake. He wouldn’t let his plans fail for a D***ed transmission. There was no one here to take his anger. Caesar opened a closet and pulled out his ceremonial sword. Another relic from the Roman age, but not quite as beloved as his coin. He went to swing it at a wall, but stopped himself. No, that would bring suspicion down on you, He told himself. Caesar dropped the sword and pulled out a cellphone instead. He had calmed himself to a reasonable state, but someone would still pay for this mistake.

     The number went through and Caesar spoke, “I don’t know if it has come through yet, but one of the final trucks is down about 100 miles from the lab. Send someone to retrieve it before anyone finds it, and I also want that driver dead.” Caesar hung up the phone before there was any reply. His followers knew better than to question his words. Hopefully this all would turn out to nothing. If they acted quick enough, and luck was in their favor, it would all be nothing. A broken transmission would NOT hinder his plans. Rome would rise again.

 

Part One

Chapter 1

     The orange sun had just barely dropped below the mountains by the time that James opened the hatch on the back of the plane. He wasn’t normally one for sights, but the mix of orange, red, pink, yellow, and shadow caused him to stare for just a moment.

     “We didn’t come here for you to admire the sunset, Watson, there is a mystery to be solved,” said Gordge, James’s commander and friend, in his English accented voice.

     James frowned. Ever since they had received the reports of an illegal chemical in the deserts around here, Gordge had been acting more and more like Sherlock Holmes, trying to solve this mystery. It didn’t help that Gordge was British and that James’s last name was Watson. James had to admit though that this mystery was more interesting than their usual tasks.

     “Why can’t I be Holmes, and you be Watson, for a change?” James replied, “Watson was shorter, and you are most definitely shorter.” Gordge Masih was a robot, one modeled after a deceased human child named George. 20 years ago Gordge was modeled after a 6 year old, and being inorganic, he never grew.

     “Now that’s not fair,” Gordge said. His voice was curt and deep like James imagined a strict British headmaster from the early 20^th century. Gordge continued, “I’ve done the DNA tests, and had I lived to adulthood as a human, I would likely have been of average height. Besides, I’m British, and your name is literally Watson.”

     “Technically I am above average height, so even if you weren’t a robot I would still be taller. Besides, Watson was also English.”

     “Well,” Gordge said, then paused, “I outrank you, so you have to obey my orders. End of discussion. 5 seconds until you need to jump.”

     A countdown appeared on James’s eyepiece. He grabbed one of the handles near the opening and leaned out peering around the side of the plane. A rush of air hit him whipping his straight chestnut hair back. They were traveling east, away from the mountains. There was an airstrip in a small town that was about 150 miles away where Gordge could land the plane. He would then set up base there to oversee the mission, and come back to retrieve James once he had completed it.

     The countdown reached zero and James released his grasp on the hand rail, allowing himself to be blown away from the back of the aircraft, and pulled toward the desert floor by gravity. As he slowly rotated backward through the air, James caught glimpses of his target. It was a large compound of some sorts. Gordge conjectured that it was some sort of illegal laboratory.

     They had first discovered it when the police reported a suspicious truck that had broken down on the side of the road. After further searching the cops had found a strange chemical mixed in with the other goods in the trailer. The masters algorithms picked this up and automatically forwarded it to Gordge and James, The Branch of Chemical Research Regulation. Only on rare occations was their job exciting. Underneath the fancy title they were just the masters’s glorified FDA. For the most part James met with officers of Pharmecuitical companies and FDA agents. Sometimes they got involved with the drug trade, which was sometimes less dull, but since James had joined the Guild of Masters and the CRR branch, he had never gotten to do something like this.

     As James got closer to the ground, his better view caused him to agree more and more with Gordge. There were no smoke stacks, so it likely wasn’t some sort of manufacturing. With the chemical that was usually associated with neurological drugs, it seemed a very likely conclusion.

     Once James completed another rotation and was again facing the ground he pulled the cord on his chute. The black fabric billowed out from his back, and James jerked upward as the parachute caught the air. He subtly tugged on the straps on either side of him to steer himself left and right. He had studied the camera blind spots on this roof so that he could land without detection.

     Gordge’s voice came back on in his headset, “Alright. Your entry point is going to be that vent on the northeast corner of the building. You can stash the chute right next to there.” Immediately a visual came up in James’s eyepiece, highlighting the vent. James touched down, and with a few steps he silently landed. He quickly folded the dark parachute, stuffing as much as he could back into the pack.

     “Gordge,” He whispered, “Show me the camera blind spots.” After hearing a few clicks through Gordge’s microphone, a diagram appeared before his vision. It was a seeming maze, with large white volumes representing the spaces that the camera could see. The blind spots were numerous enough though. Whoever had built this factory had not invested too much in rooftop security, likely assuming that if the lab couldn’t be found in the first place it would be pointless. It was tricky to find. Thankfully James had stumbled onto some wrong code in the computers of the Masters’s survellance sattelites. It almost seemed as though someone had reprogrammed the sattelites to intentionally overlook this area. They hadn’t changed the code because it could possibly alert their targets that they were coming. Instead reverse enginnered the code to find the coordinates it was overlooking, then flew a plane over earlier to glean as much information as possible

     James made his way through the maze until he reached the vent. From this point forward he would be going blind. They had only been able to obtain information about the surface of the building. James tucked the bundled parachute into a corner, then carefully removed the grate over the vent. He studied the shaft for a second, then slowly lowered his hand into the opening. No alarm sounded. That was a good sign. There security wasn’t completely state of the art. Before James got a chance to climb in himself, he heard footsteps crossing around the corner of the building. He quickly ducked down behind the small wall that covered the perimeter of the roof. Nothing special about the technological security, but there are guards, James noted.

     Avoiding the sightline of the guards, James crawled headfirst into the opening in the roof. He pressed his hands against the metal sides of the shaft and slowly lowered himself down to where the vent T-ed and two other vents ran off, perpendicular to each other, and parallel to the ground. James lowered himself far enough so that he could peer down both branches. The one to his right seemed longer, so he awkwardly bend around the corner. After flipping over onto his stomach he started pulling himself down toward the next intersection.

     After many corners and decisions of which one to go down, James finally came to a grate that opened into a room. He peered through the slits to see what was in the room. It just so happened to be full of official looking people. He instinctively pulled back into the shadow, and had to stop himself from banging his head on the back of the narrow passage. Sloppy, He thought to himself. James didn’t often get a chance to show anyone other than Gordge his skills, but in his own humble opinion he might be one of the most skilled field agents in the entire Guild. Instead he was stuck in the CRR, which most of the time was meetings, paperwork, and chemistry. Not that he hated any of those, James had always been fascinated by the latter, but he truly felt alive when he was infiltrating, spying and extracting. You might die if you made a mistake like hitting your head on the duct, He quieted his thoughts by determining to not make any more slip ups. He was the best, and he would show it, even if it was just to Gordge.

     He continued observing the room. It appeared to be some sort of break room. He glanced at the top right corner of the interface that was projected on his eye by his eyepiece. It was 9:24 P.M., both here in Arizona, and back at home in California. Arizona didn’t do daylight savings, so they and the pacific timezone were on the same clock all throughout the summer.

     It’s a little late for dinner, James thought, but maybe these scientists worked all throughout the night, and some had skewed schedules. That would be convienient. Yes, more people meant a greater likelyhood of getting caught, but if people slept during the night, there would be no where to get in, less people to hid among and impersonate, and it would be suspicious that a computer was on, and someone was downloading the whole harddrive in the middle of the night.

     That was his objective. Get in, get on the mainframe, and download everything. They could sort out clues later. For now, all they knew is that this building wasn’t on the map, and a expensive chemical that was only legal for highly supervised pharmecuitical companies was being shipped here. Once they had this drive they could sort of the details and determine how many laws they were breaking, what plans they were making, and if they needed to be shut down.

     James was about to move one down the shaft when the people started exiting the room. He checked the time again, 9:30. Perfect. He didn’t know if he would be able to find another entrance into the main area of the building. He pulled a magnetic drill off his belt and stuck it to one of the screws and pressed down the trigger. The head spun and the screw rose out of it hole on the opposite side of the grate, but once it came free James pushed another button that made the screw stick to the grate instead of falling to the floor of the room. As he undid the last three screws he decided that if he ever built a place that needed to be impenetrable he would make the air ducts small, but not too small. If they were too small then the infiltrator would have to find another way, but even just a few inches smaller than the shaft James was currently in and it would be clausterphobic, or even to small to manuver through.

     James carefully pushed the grate out of its spot, but then caught it before it had a chance to fall to the floor. After placing it beside him in the shaft he peered out and glanced around the room for cameras. He found two, both able to pivot. He made sure the camera on his eyepiece got a good view of the cameras and their moving parts.

     “You getting all of this?” James whispered.

     “Indeed I am,” Came Gordge’s reply through his ear, “Give me about 10 more seconds and I’ll get you a blind spot visual.”

     James lay there waiting until the visual came up. The vent was right in the view of the camera, but after a few more seconds the camera moved to another angle and James was able to slip out, replace the grate, and make his way to the door.

     He repeated the process of identifying cameras and getting info back on the blind spots, then in a crouch started down the hall to the right. There were’nt as many blind spots in the hall as in the room and on the roof, but with quick movements and sometimes a quick flash of a laser right into the lens, he was able to go undetected.

     His next step was to find anything that might lead to a mainframe. The worst case scenario would be to swipe a security badge and actually plug a drive into the mainframe, then download everything. Hopefully though, he could find some way into the system, and plug in the code that he and Gordge had written up before. That code would do the work for them and transmit the data straight back to Gordge.

     James listened carefully for any whirings that might indicate a computer. However, he found none. It was a miracle that no one passed him while he was making his way down the hall. James theorized that everyone had to be hard at work except during the break times, and there hadn’t been another one yet. Eventually he found a room where people were working on desktop computers. From what he saw on the computer screens it did indeed seem that they were modeling molecules of compounds that could be drugs, but he recognized none.

     These computers weren’t the main frame, but they would have to do. James could feel that his luck was running out, because even when not on a break people likely had to walk between rooms to fetch data, people, and use the restroom.

     “What do you think Gordge?” James asked as he risked another glance through the window.

     “Well, I’ve been inserting the data you’re sending back into the program that we assembled, and based on the functions of each room, there will most likely be people in the hall any moment now. It is statistically impossible to avoid people forever,” Gordge stated, echoing James’s thoughts, “You could go back in the ventilation system, but it will be much more difficult to find the location of rooms.”

     Gordge stopped, seeming to have said all that he needed to say. It bugged James when Gordge did that. Shouldn’t robots not lose their train of thought, their computers should easily be able to think ahead, and keep on the right track. Gordge always claimed that his parents had programed in certain flaws that their actual son George would have had, had he not died. It was great that Gordge was more human, but some of those flaws were annoying at times.

     “So uh Gordge. What’s your point?” James encouraged.

     “Oh bother. Yes, you should find a way to get in there. I don’t believe that all those computers are closed systems. If you can’t get the info we need, you can at least get passwords, building layouts, or possibly find out what chemical compound they are building. Do be careful though, from what I’ve seen of this place, if it goes into lockdown there is no getting away.”

     James nodded. Gestures could be scene by Gordge on the other end. “Maybe start bringing the plane back. If I’m detected I should be able to get out before anyone can lock the place down.” The last of the programs they had handy for this mission was one that James had made when he had first signed on as an agent. At that point he thought the Masters would like him making a useful program for them. After all, the whole reason he joined is because he had accidentaly hacked his way into their base, and they didn’t kill him because of his computer skills, and they determined his intents weren’t malicious. He had thought they would hire him as a computer scientist, or possibly put him in the branch of Global Data Security. Instead he ended up in the CRR, where he and Gordge were the only two who appreciated his brilliant programs.

     The program took in camera data and GPS data. It would identify air vents from the pictures, and combined with the GPS it would create a map of the duct system. James had turned on the program before he had even jumped out of the plane, because ventilation systems were a convienient means of undetected travel. If he got caught he could be through the system and back on the roof for Gordge to pick him up before anyone high enough up to order a lock down even found out.

     That was the worst case though. For now he had a different plan. What James needed now is for someone to leave the room. James pulled out a small tube from its pocket on his belt. A short-range blow gun. Very useful for tranquelizing and such. From his book of darts, James selected the fast-acting laxative. He loaded the dart and then carefully pulled open the door to the room. Hopefully everyone would be too focused on their work to notice a slightly ajar door. He picked a subject that had a similar build and look to himself, then gave a quick strong breath into the gun. The miniature dart flew true and hit the man in a near impossible to reach place on his back. The dart was small enough and sunk deep enough into his skin that the man wouldn’t know that he had been darted. To him it would feel like a strong itch.

     James waited tensly as the man scratched his back but continued working. In a few seconds though he began shifting uncomfortably, then cleared his throat and left the room as quickly as possible. In fact he left so quickly that he didn’t even notice James waiting for him out side the door. James followed him until they were both in a camera blind spot, then caught the man over the temple with the butt of his pistol.

     He stripped off the man’s clothes and quickly put them on over his own. He just left the man in the blind spot. There were no convinient janitorial closets to put the unconcious man in. That would have made his mission too easy, besides James could easily have the files downloaded and be on his way before anyone discovered the man. The next break probably wouldn’t be for at least an hour or two.

     James was about to leave the blind spot when he realized two things. First, he was still wearing his ear and eye pieces. He removed both and put them in a pocket. Second, it would be suspicious if someone stopped in a blind spot, and stayed there for over a minute. James pretended to have a coughing fit as he walked out of the blind spot, to cover up the minute that he was not walking. He then hurried down the hall until he found a bathroom. He stepped inside, waited just a second, then went back out. While time was precious, it was important to keep up the act that he was the man who he was impersonating. James quickly walked back to the computer room, and stepped inside.

     Everyone would hopefully not notice that this was a different man. James didn’t have the convienience of unrealisticly realistic masks like in some movies, but with everyone staring down at a computer screen he doubted that they would be studying his face closely enough to notice anything. James walked over and took the open seat. The computer session had timed out, so it required another password. James deftly retrieved the hack drive, and the blank drive where he would store the data, from his belt, and plugged them into the computer with the same sleight of hand.

     The screen began changing as Gordge started hacking in. James only needed to pretend to be working until the hack was finished, and then he could hopefully bail without raising too much notice. A transfer bar appeared on screen. Good. That meant Gordge had been able to access the mainframe through this computer. The progress bar reached 10%. There hadn’t really been any excitement in this mission. No fights, or problems that were too hard to solve. 15%. 20%.

     All of the sudden there was a female scream from the hallway. Everyone in the room turned with a start toward the door. Well, James thought, Time to get the heck out of here. The researchers started to make there way out of the room to investigate the scream. James popped his earpiece back in to consult Gordge.

     “What do I do Gordge?” James whispered.

     “I don’t think you will be able to avoid getting caught if you wait for the drive,” Gordge stated grimly, “I have the duct map generated enough to get you out. I’m almost to the lab.”

     “What if I left the hack drive in, and you could transfer the data remotely?”

     “I don’t think that’s secure enough. Besides. If they found that drive in the computer they would know for certain that someone had infiltrated them, and could even reverse engineer it and find out who. Let’s cut our losses and abort. We have some of it. That will have to be enough.”

     James clenched his teeth in frustration. He was confident that the man wouldn’t be discovered. From what he had seen of the scientists they were so dedicated to their work that they wouldn’t be out wandering the halls. He hadn’t considered the possibility that someone could have been I the halls for a work reason. Gordge was right though. There was nothing they could do about James’s mistake now. James pulled the drive which had gotten up to 30% of the mainframe. He stripped off his disguise down to his tight black outfit, and replaced his eyepiece. He secured both drives on his belt and dashed for the vent.

     James had barely removed the grate, and climbed up inside when some of the researchers burst into the room. They put it all together when they saw the discarded uniform on the floor and sent someone to alert a lockdown. James decided to only replace 1 screw for the sake of time. He barely had the screw in when the door burst open and security guards along with a man in a suit burst in through the door. James shimied up the shaft until he hit a ‘T’. At that moment Gordge activated the vent mapping program. James took the right branch.

     After a left, then another right, he was back to the shaft that he started in. The security would probably come to the roof next. It wasn’t hard to determine that James had gone up through the vents. “You here yet?” James asked. He didn’t want to go out on the roof unless Gordge could pick him up right then.

     “Almost,” Gordge replied, “You are clear on the roof for now. I’ll be there in about 10 seconds.”

     James hurried up the last shaft, and pushed out the top grate. The chute that he had stashed earlier was still there. The plane was speeding toward the plant, but was dangerously low to the ground. The CRR’s one aircraft was a fairly recent model. It was able to sustain altitude even at near stopped speeds. That allowed it to sort of hover, and take off and land in limited spaces.

     As the aircraft got close it suddenly pulled to a slow speed and began turning around to land on the flat rooftop. However, at that moment a team of scientists and security guards burst from a door on the other side of the rooftop.

     “No time to land,” James informed Gordge, “There here. Pull as close as you can and I’ll have to jump.”

     The plane lowered about 5 feet and started backing toward the edge of the rooftop. James tossed the bundled chute which landed in the back bay. He then backed up a few feet and began sprinting toward the edge of the roof. When he reached the small wall at the edge, he planted his right foot on top and jumped with all his strength.

     A gunshot cracked out behind him, but barely missed. James caught the lip of the open rear door, and pulled himself inside as Gordge started moving away. As soon as he was inside, the door began closing and the plane picked up speed. James breathed out a sigh of relief and made his way up to the cockpit.

     Inside Gordge sat in the pilot seat and was concentrating as he turned the plane westward.

     “Well, that was close,” James said, collapsing in the co-pilot chair. Gordge grunted in agreement.

     “All you’ve got to do now is not crash and kill us as we fly back. Because then this whole thing would have been for nothing. Knock on wood, am I right?” James chuckled at his comment. Gordge didn’t say anything, but reached out and rapped his metal knuckes twice on a wooden board that they had drilled to the side of the chair for that very purpose.

Swear words have been *ed, for your protection , and yes Gordge is spelled the way it is on purpose.

Thanks,

Mage

EDIT: I said that I would post a chapter each day and stuff, but then I realized that this was an unrevised first draft, and therefore not very good. I am almost done with the first draft, and once I get some basic revisions in, then I will post more and ask for more feedback from you guys. Thanks!

Edited December 27, 2020 by Mage

[Shard of Reading]

@Mage I love this. I think that the character's interact great, the story seems intriguing and I want more. The only thing that stuck out to me that you might want to change was this:

9 hours ago, Mage said:

Caesar clenched his hands and feet in nervousness

Just saying that he clenched his feet seemed weird.

Also I like the Sherlock banter at the beginning.

[Frustration]

Nice work, this is really interesting, although bringing back Rome is a weird motivation.

[Mage]

Thanks for the feedback guys. Unfortunately the whole Sherlock scene drained most of my funny banter reserves, so there is less of that in the next chapters. but in future drafts I’ll try to add more. Any ideas would be appreciated.

 I’ll explore Caesars motivations more in the future. It is more than just bringing back Rome. I just don’t want to give away caesar’s identity yet. 

[Shard of Reading]

9 minutes ago, Mage said:

Thanks for the feedback guys. Unfortunately the whole Sherlock scene drained most of my funny banter reserves, so there is less of that in the next chapters. but in future drafts I’ll try to add more. Any ideas would be appreciated.

 I’ll explore Caesars motivations more in the future. It is more than just bringing back Rome. I just don’t want to give away caesar’s identity yet. 

Personally I was fine with the whole "Bring back rome" thing. It seemed like something that you were going to elaborate on later and has the potential to be really cool.

[Frustration]

35 minutes ago, Mage said:

Thanks for the feedback guys. Unfortunately the whole Sherlock scene drained most of my funny banter reserves, so there is less of that in the next chapters. but in future drafts I’ll try to add more. Any ideas would be appreciated.

 I’ll explore Caesars motivations more in the future. It is more than just bringing back Rome. I just don’t want to give away caesar’s identity yet. 

Oh, boy, immortal isn't he.

[Guest Somebody from Scadrial]

3 hours ago, Frustration said:

Oh, boy, immortal isn't he.

That was my first thought when I heard him talking about Rome lol

[Condensation]

16 hours ago, Mage said:

Okay, so @HoidWasTaken, you pointed out to me that I was coming up on 100 posts. Thanks for that. Knowing me, I probably would have blown right by that without even knowing. I couldn't think of any great memes, or unifying theory of the cosmere, to celebrate this. Instead, I figured that I might post some of the novel I am working on. It isn't fantasy (sorry). I know we are all fantasy fans. I have a fantasy series planned, but I am currently working on a sort of sci-fi, thriller, detective...it doesn't really fit in a genre, but think Mission Impossible, but in a book and with more character development (don't get me wrong, I love MI, but the characters don't really change at all, they just shoot stuff and climb things).

So, I guess for my 100th post I'll post the prologue and chapter one. Don't judge. Well, do judge. I appreciate any feedback, but this is a rough draft, so grammar feedback isn't as important to me at this point. But uh, here goes I guess:

  Reveal hidden contents

Prologue

     Caesar flipped the coin into the air and then caught it again. This coin was arguably his most prized possessions. It was an ancient Roman coin, a denarius, and hadn’t been cheap. However, it was worth the cost. He wasn’t a coin collector, but had always been interested in metals. The coin was of silver, and bore the face of a Caesar of old. How he longed to return to those days, when Rome was at it highest. This was the coins greatest quality. The focus and drive it gave him to accomplish his goals

     Finally his computer loaded. In his current location he didn’t have access to his most powerful computers, so in order to run the needed program he used a laptop. The dark room lightened a little as the white background of the program appeared. Caesar began scrolling through the shipping logs. There were currently only three trucks left carrying ingredients for his destructive recepie. The last one would be arriving tomorrow.

     Caesar had made sure only to choose the most skilled drivers for the product that he was sending. Most people were good drivers, but in order to stay undetected by those who were watching out for shipments like these...well that was a trickier task. A crash, or even a flat tire could reveal himself to the Masters. The local governments wouldn’t think much about it, but the Masters, the higher, hidden government, would be on to him within hours of a mishap.

     That was why he couldn’t settle for anyone but the best drivers, the best trucks, the best containers, and the best location. The location was key. It was difficult to set up a research facility that was to be kept of the radar, but also have easy access to all the supplies that it needed. Once he found it though he took every procaution to ensure that the sattelites and cameras would turn a blind eye to the location.

     The number of miles left for the last truck slowly ticked down as Caesar clenched his hands and feet in nervousness. He could feel the victory, the glory, and the power, all within his reach now. Once the product was complete he would throw the world into chaos, and while they were struggling to recover he would deliver the killing blow. Then, when society had hit the bottom they would turn to a final option of salvation. Him. He smiled, thinking of the day when the world would again be subject to Caesar. The Masters had served their purpose for these last 1500 years, but now it was time for them to fall and Rome to again rise.

     Caesar started away from his pondering as something on the screen changed. He glanced at it, confused. The numbers on one of the truck’s logs had stopped moving. Anger began to fill within Caesar. He had given explicit instructions not to stop for anything! He quickly checked the coordinates of the truck. It was a mere 100 miles away from the lab. Of all the places for it to stop, it had to be there! Anywhere else and the shady contents could be explained away, but here, the truck would lead them right to the lab. The log blinked a new entry: TRANSMISSION FAILURE. The transmission could go to H*** for all that Caesar cared.

     Caesar stood and stormed out of the room. Someone was going to pay dearly for this mistake. He wouldn’t let his plans fail for a D***ed transmission. There was no one here to take his anger. Caesar opened a closet and pulled out his ceremonial sword. Another relic from the Roman age, but not quite as beloved as his coin. He went to swing it at a wall, but stopped himself. No, that would bring suspicion down on you, He told himself. Caesar dropped the sword and pulled out a cellphone instead. He had calmed himself to a reasonable state, but someone would still pay for this mistake.

     The number went through and Caesar spoke, “I don’t know if it has come through yet, but one of the final trucks is down about 100 miles from the lab. Send someone to retrieve it before anyone finds it, and I also want that driver dead.” Caesar hung up the phone before there was any reply. His followers knew better than to question his words. Hopefully this all would turn out to nothing. If they acted quick enough, and luck was in their favor, it would all be nothing. A broken transmission would NOT hinder his plans. Rome would rise again.

 

Part One

Chapter 1

     The orange sun had just barely dropped below the mountains by the time that James opened the hatch on the back of the plane. He wasn’t normally one for sights, but the mix of orange, red, pink, yellow, and shadow caused him to stare for just a moment.

     “We didn’t come here for you to admire the sunset, Watson, there is a mystery to be solved,” said Gordge, James’s commander and friend, in his English accented voice.

     James frowned. Ever since they had received the reports of an illegal chemical in the deserts around here, Gordge had been acting more and more like Sherlock Holmes, trying to solve this mystery. It didn’t help that Gordge was British and that James’s last name was Watson. James had to admit though that this mystery was more interesting than their usual tasks.

     “Why can’t I be Holmes, and you be Watson, for a change?” James replied, “Watson was shorter, and you are most definitely shorter.” Gordge Masih was a robot, one modeled after a deceased human child named George. 20 years ago Gordge was modeled after a 6 year old, and being inorganic, he never grew.

     “Now that’s not fair,” Gordge said. His voice was curt and deep like James imagined a strict British headmaster from the early 20^th century. Gordge continued, “I’ve done the DNA tests, and had I lived to adulthood as a human, I would likely have been of average height. Besides, I’m British, and your name is literally Watson.”

     “Technically I am above average height, so even if you weren’t a robot I would still be taller. Besides, Watson was also English.”

     “Well,” Gordge said, then paused, “I outrank you, so you have to obey my orders. End of discussion. 5 seconds until you need to jump.”

     A countdown appeared on James’s eyepiece. He grabbed one of the handles near the opening and leaned out peering around the side of the plane. A rush of air hit him whipping his straight chestnut hair back. They were traveling east, away from the mountains. There was an airstrip in a small town that was about 150 miles away where Gordge could land the plane. He would then set up base there to oversee the mission, and come back to retrieve James once he had completed it.

     The countdown reached zero and James released his grasp on the hand rail, allowing himself to be blown away from the back of the aircraft, and pulled toward the desert floor by gravity. As he slowly rotated backward through the air, James caught glimpses of his target. It was a large compound of some sorts. Gordge conjectured that it was some sort of illegal laboratory.

     They had first discovered it when the police reported a suspicious truck that had broken down on the side of the road. After further searching the cops had found a strange chemical mixed in with the other goods in the trailer. The masters algorithms picked this up and automatically forwarded it to Gordge and James, The Branch of Chemical Research Regulation. Only on rare occations was their job exciting. Underneath the fancy title they were just the masters’s glorified FDA. For the most part James met with officers of Pharmecuitical companies and FDA agents. Sometimes they got involved with the drug trade, which was sometimes less dull, but since James had joined the Guild of Masters and the CRR branch, he had never gotten to do something like this.

     As James got closer to the ground, his better view caused him to agree more and more with Gordge. There were no smoke stacks, so it likely wasn’t some sort of manufacturing. With the chemical that was usually associated with neurological drugs, it seemed a very likely conclusion.

     Once James completed another rotation and was again facing the ground he pulled the cord on his chute. The black fabric billowed out from his back, and James jerked upward as the parachute caught the air. He subtly tugged on the straps on either side of him to steer himself left and right. He had studied the camera blind spots on this roof so that he could land without detection.

     Gordge’s voice came back on in his headset, “Alright. Your entry point is going to be that vent on the northeast corner of the building. You can stash the chute right next to there.” Immediately a visual came up in James’s eyepiece, highlighting the vent. James touched down, and with a few steps he silently landed. He quickly folded the dark parachute, stuffing as much as he could back into the pack.

     “Gordge,” He whispered, “Show me the camera blind spots.” After hearing a few clicks through Gordge’s microphone, a diagram appeared before his vision. It was a seeming maze, with large white volumes representing the spaces that the camera could see. The blind spots were numerous enough though. Whoever had built this factory had not invested too much in rooftop security, likely assuming that if the lab couldn’t be found in the first place it would be pointless. It was tricky to find. Thankfully James had stumbled onto some wrong code in the computers of the Masters’s survellance sattelites. It almost seemed as though someone had reprogrammed the sattelites to intentionally overlook this area. They hadn’t changed the code because it could possibly alert their targets that they were coming. Instead reverse enginnered the code to find the coordinates it was overlooking, then flew a plane over earlier to glean as much information as possible

     James made his way through the maze until he reached the vent. From this point forward he would be going blind. They had only been able to obtain information about the surface of the building. James tucked the bundled parachute into a corner, then carefully removed the grate over the vent. He studied the shaft for a second, then slowly lowered his hand into the opening. No alarm sounded. That was a good sign. There security wasn’t completely state of the art. Before James got a chance to climb in himself, he heard footsteps crossing around the corner of the building. He quickly ducked down behind the small wall that covered the perimeter of the roof. Nothing special about the technological security, but there are guards, James noted.

     Avoiding the sightline of the guards, James crawled headfirst into the opening in the roof. He pressed his hands against the metal sides of the shaft and slowly lowered himself down to where the vent T-ed and two other vents ran off, perpendicular to each other, and parallel to the ground. James lowered himself far enough so that he could peer down both branches. The one to his right seemed longer, so he awkwardly bend around the corner. After flipping over onto his stomach he started pulling himself down toward the next intersection.

     After many corners and decisions of which one to go down, James finally came to a grate that opened into a room. He peered through the slits to see what was in the room. It just so happened to be full of official looking people. He instinctively pulled back into the shadow, and had to stop himself from banging his head on the back of the narrow passage. Sloppy, He thought to himself. James didn’t often get a chance to show anyone other than Gordge his skills, but in his own humble opinion he might be one of the most skilled field agents in the entire Guild. Instead he was stuck in the CRR, which most of the time was meetings, paperwork, and chemistry. Not that he hated any of those, James had always been fascinated by the latter, but he truly felt alive when he was infiltrating, spying and extracting. You might die if you made a mistake like hitting your head on the duct, He quieted his thoughts by determining to not make any more slip ups. He was the best, and he would show it, even if it was just to Gordge.

     He continued observing the room. It appeared to be some sort of break room. He glanced at the top right corner of the interface that was projected on his eye by his eyepiece. It was 9:24 P.M., both here in Arizona, and back at home in California. Arizona didn’t do daylight savings, so they and the pacific timezone were on the same clock all throughout the summer.

     It’s a little late for dinner, James thought, but maybe these scientists worked all throughout the night, and some had skewed schedules. That would be convienient. Yes, more people meant a greater likelyhood of getting caught, but if people slept during the night, there would be no where to get in, less people to hid among and impersonate, and it would be suspicious that a computer was on, and someone was downloading the whole harddrive in the middle of the night.

     That was his objective. Get in, get on the mainframe, and download everything. They could sort out clues later. For now, all they knew is that this building wasn’t on the map, and a expensive chemical that was only legal for highly supervised pharmecuitical companies was being shipped here. Once they had this drive they could sort of the details and determine how many laws they were breaking, what plans they were making, and if they needed to be shut down.

     James was about to move one down the shaft when the people started exiting the room. He checked the time again, 9:30. Perfect. He didn’t know if he would be able to find another entrance into the main area of the building. He pulled a magnetic drill off his belt and stuck it to one of the screws and pressed down the trigger. The head spun and the screw rose out of it hole on the opposite side of the grate, but once it came free James pushed another button that made the screw stick to the grate instead of falling to the floor of the room. As he undid the last three screws he decided that if he ever built a place that needed to be impenetrable he would make the air ducts small, but not too small. If they were too small then the infiltrator would have to find another way, but even just a few inches smaller than the shaft James was currently in and it would be clausterphobic, or even to small to manuver through.

     James carefully pushed the grate out of its spot, but then caught it before it had a chance to fall to the floor. After placing it beside him in the shaft he peered out and glanced around the room for cameras. He found two, both able to pivot. He made sure the camera on his eyepiece got a good view of the cameras and their moving parts.

     “You getting all of this?” James whispered.

     “Indeed I am,” Came Gordge’s reply through his ear, “Give me about 10 more seconds and I’ll get you a blind spot visual.”

     James lay there waiting until the visual came up. The vent was right in the view of the camera, but after a few more seconds the camera moved to another angle and James was able to slip out, replace the grate, and make his way to the door.

     He repeated the process of identifying cameras and getting info back on the blind spots, then in a crouch started down the hall to the right. There were’nt as many blind spots in the hall as in the room and on the roof, but with quick movements and sometimes a quick flash of a laser right into the lens, he was able to go undetected.

     His next step was to find anything that might lead to a mainframe. The worst case scenario would be to swipe a security badge and actually plug a drive into the mainframe, then download everything. Hopefully though, he could find some way into the system, and plug in the code that he and Gordge had written up before. That code would do the work for them and transmit the data straight back to Gordge.

     James listened carefully for any whirings that might indicate a computer. However, he found none. It was a miracle that no one passed him while he was making his way down the hall. James theorized that everyone had to be hard at work except during the break times, and there hadn’t been another one yet. Eventually he found a room where people were working on desktop computers. From what he saw on the computer screens it did indeed seem that they were modeling molecules of compounds that could be drugs, but he recognized none.

     These computers weren’t the main frame, but they would have to do. James could feel that his luck was running out, because even when not on a break people likely had to walk between rooms to fetch data, people, and use the restroom.

     “What do you think Gordge?” James asked as he risked another glance through the window.

     “Well, I’ve been inserting the data you’re sending back into the program that we assembled, and based on the functions of each room, there will most likely be people in the hall any moment now. It is statistically impossible to avoid people forever,” Gordge stated, echoing James’s thoughts, “You could go back in the ventilation system, but it will be much more difficult to find the location of rooms.”

     Gordge stopped, seeming to have said all that he needed to say. It bugged James when Gordge did that. Shouldn’t robots not lose their train of thought, their computers should easily be able to think ahead, and keep on the right track. Gordge always claimed that his parents had programed in certain flaws that their actual son George would have had, had he not died. It was great that Gordge was more human, but some of those flaws were annoying at times.

     “So uh Gordge. What’s your point?” James encouraged.

     “Oh bother. Yes, you should find a way to get in there. I don’t believe that all those computers are closed systems. If you can’t get the info we need, you can at least get passwords, building layouts, or possibly find out what chemical compound they are building. Do be careful though, from what I’ve seen of this place, if it goes into lockdown there is no getting away.”

     James nodded. Gestures could be scene by Gordge on the other end. “Maybe start bringing the plane back. If I’m detected I should be able to get out before anyone can lock the place down.” The last of the programs they had handy for this mission was one that James had made when he had first signed on as an agent. At that point he thought the Masters would like him making a useful program for them. After all, the whole reason he joined is because he had accidentaly hacked his way into their base, and they didn’t kill him because of his computer skills, and they determined his intents weren’t malicious. He had thought they would hire him as a computer scientist, or possibly put him in the branch of Global Data Security. Instead he ended up in the CRR, where he and Gordge were the only two who appreciated his brilliant programs.

     The program took in camera data and GPS data. It would identify air vents from the pictures, and combined with the GPS it would create a map of the duct system. James had turned on the program before he had even jumped out of the plane, because ventilation systems were a convienient means of undetected travel. If he got caught he could be through the system and back on the roof for Gordge to pick him up before anyone high enough up to order a lock down even found out.

     That was the worst case though. For now he had a different plan. What James needed now is for someone to leave the room. James pulled out a small tube from its pocket on his belt. A short-range blow gun. Very useful for tranquelizing and such. From his book of darts, James selected the fast-acting laxative. He loaded the dart and then carefully pulled open the door to the room. Hopefully everyone would be too focused on their work to notice a slightly ajar door. He picked a subject that had a similar build and look to himself, then gave a quick strong breath into the gun. The miniature dart flew true and hit the man in a near impossible to reach place on his back. The dart was small enough and sunk deep enough into his skin that the man wouldn’t know that he had been darted. To him it would feel like a strong itch.

     James waited tensly as the man scratched his back but continued working. In a few seconds though he began shifting uncomfortably, then cleared his throat and left the room as quickly as possible. In fact he left so quickly that he didn’t even notice James waiting for him out side the door. James followed him until they were both in a camera blind spot, then caught the man over the temple with the butt of his pistol.

     He stripped off the man’s clothes and quickly put them on over his own. He just left the man in the blind spot. There were no convinient janitorial closets to put the unconcious man in. That would have made his mission too easy, besides James could easily have the files downloaded and be on his way before anyone discovered the man. The next break probably wouldn’t be for at least an hour or two.

     James was about to leave the blind spot when he realized two things. First, he was still wearing his ear and eye pieces. He removed both and put them in a pocket. Second, it would be suspicious if someone stopped in a blind spot, and stayed there for over a minute. James pretended to have a coughing fit as he walked out of the blind spot, to cover up the minute that he was not walking. He then hurried down the hall until he found a bathroom. He stepped inside, waited just a second, then went back out. While time was precious, it was important to keep up the act that he was the man who he was impersonating. James quickly walked back to the computer room, and stepped inside.

     Everyone would hopefully not notice that this was a different man. James didn’t have the convienience of unrealisticly realistic masks like in some movies, but with everyone staring down at a computer screen he doubted that they would be studying his face closely enough to notice anything. James walked over and took the open seat. The computer session had timed out, so it required another password. James deftly retrieved the hack drive, and the blank drive where he would store the data, from his belt, and plugged them into the computer with the same sleight of hand.

     The screen began changing as Gordge started hacking in. James only needed to pretend to be working until the hack was finished, and then he could hopefully bail without raising too much notice. A transfer bar appeared on screen. Good. That meant Gordge had been able to access the mainframe through this computer. The progress bar reached 10%. There hadn’t really been any excitement in this mission. No fights, or problems that were too hard to solve. 15%. 20%.

     All of the sudden there was a female scream from the hallway. Everyone in the room turned with a start toward the door. Well, James thought, Time to get the heck out of here. The researchers started to make there way out of the room to investigate the scream. James popped his earpiece back in to consult Gordge.

     “What do I do Gordge?” James whispered.

     “I don’t think you will be able to avoid getting caught if you wait for the drive,” Gordge stated grimly, “I have the duct map generated enough to get you out. I’m almost to the lab.”

     “What if I left the hack drive in, and you could transfer the data remotely?”

     “I don’t think that’s secure enough. Besides. If they found that drive in the computer they would know for certain that someone had infiltrated them, and could even reverse engineer it and find out who. Let’s cut our losses and abort. We have some of it. That will have to be enough.”

     James clenched his teeth in frustration. He was confident that the man wouldn’t be discovered. From what he had seen of the scientists they were so dedicated to their work that they wouldn’t be out wandering the halls. He hadn’t considered the possibility that someone could have been I the halls for a work reason. Gordge was right though. There was nothing they could do about James’s mistake now. James pulled the drive which had gotten up to 30% of the mainframe. He stripped off his disguise down to his tight black outfit, and replaced his eyepiece. He secured both drives on his belt and dashed for the vent.

     James had barely removed the grate, and climbed up inside when some of the researchers burst into the room. They put it all together when they saw the discarded uniform on the floor and sent someone to alert a lockdown. James decided to only replace 1 screw for the sake of time. He barely had the screw in when the door burst open and security guards along with a man in a suit burst in through the door. James shimied up the shaft until he hit a ‘T’. At that moment Gordge activated the vent mapping program. James took the right branch.

     After a left, then another right, he was back to the shaft that he started in. The security would probably come to the roof next. It wasn’t hard to determine that James had gone up through the vents. “You here yet?” James asked. He didn’t want to go out on the roof unless Gordge could pick him up right then.

     “Almost,” Gordge replied, “You are clear on the roof for now. I’ll be there in about 10 seconds.”

     James hurried up the last shaft, and pushed out the top grate. The chute that he had stashed earlier was still there. The plane was speeding toward the plant, but was dangerously low to the ground. The CRR’s one aircraft was a fairly recent model. It was able to sustain altitude even at near stopped speeds. That allowed it to sort of hover, and take off and land in limited spaces.

     As the aircraft got close it suddenly pulled to a slow speed and began turning around to land on the flat rooftop. However, at that moment a team of scientists and security guards burst from a door on the other side of the rooftop.

     “No time to land,” James informed Gordge, “There here. Pull as close as you can and I’ll have to jump.”

     The plane lowered about 5 feet and started backing toward the edge of the rooftop. James tossed the bundled chute which landed in the back bay. He then backed up a few feet and began sprinting toward the edge of the roof. When he reached the small wall at the edge, he planted his right foot on top and jumped with all his strength.

     A gunshot cracked out behind him, but barely missed. James caught the lip of the open rear door, and pulled himself inside as Gordge started moving away. As soon as he was inside, the door began closing and the plane picked up speed. James breathed out a sigh of relief and made his way up to the cockpit.

     Inside Gordge sat in the pilot seat and was concentrating as he turned the plane westward.

     “Well, that was close,” James said, collapsing in the co-pilot chair. Gordge grunted in agreement.

     “All you’ve got to do now is not crash and kill us as we fly back. Because then this whole thing would have been for nothing. Knock on wood, am I right?” James chuckled at his comment. Gordge didn’t say anything, but reached out and rapped his metal knuckes twice on a wooden board that they had drilled to the side of the chair for that very purpose.

Swear words have been *ed, for your protection , and yes Gordge is spelled the way it is on purpose.

Thanks,

Mage

Congratulations! This is quite impressive. Also, happy 100! May you have many more!

[Mage]

I've got something like 17 chapters written, and I have been writing a lot recently, so I figured I would post a chapter a day until it caught up to me. This time though, I did a spell check first, and added some subtle things to contribute to the characterization (I think. It may have been for a later chapter. Don't exactly remember).

So, for all interested parties I present, Chapter 2:

Spoiler

Chapter 2

     Gordge wheeled the chalkboard to the front of the room and whipped out a piece of chalk.

     “Alright team,” He said looking over the room. James sat near a wall, using screens installed in it as a computer monitor. He was pulling up the necessary files for this meeting. Their Intelligent Life Imitation Model’s interface showed on the back wall.

     ILIM, as they called him, showed up on screens as a simple face, like a child would draw. A circle with two dots for eyes, and a line for a mouth. Beside him on the screen was a transcript of the things he said and files he accessed. ILIM was probably the greatest achievement of the CRR since Gordge became Master of the branch, even though it wasn’t part of their obligations. James had written the main skeleton code, and Gordge had filled in the details to make what was arguable the second best A.I. in the world. Second only to Gordge himself. He still was baffled by the programing skills of his ‘parents’, mostly due to his own self-awareness. His studies had told him that computers weren’t self-aware and couldn’t have free will, but somehow Gordge felt that he did. Perhaps though, it was only an illusion.

     Gordge continued, “We have this data retrieved from the illegal laboratory. The lab was obviously not self-sustained. They couldn’t sell their products in the U.S. because they are not registered to produce pharmaceuticals, and nothing they have produced has been officially tested and approved by any country, or us. So, the point I’m getting to is that they are getting funding from someone or something, and we need to find that something.”

     Gordge liked to make this feel like an official meeting. It made him feel important, and when they had a visiting agent it was fun to make them feel uncomfortable. It was hard when there were only one human, one robot, and on AI, but the other two played along. Gordge suspected though that James disliked the officiality of Gordge’s act.

     James raised his hand and spoke intentionally including a tone of sarcasm in his smooth voice, “Um, fearless team-leader Gordge? I still don’t get why we can’t just get a squad from HQ, contact the U.S. government, then go in and shut this place down.”

     “Well, team-member James. Dear Agent Watson, first off all, that would be no fun. Second of all, the things they are doing aren’t super illegal. It is really only the building and property problem. From what you saw on the inside they aren’t doing any illegal experimentation, only computer models.  Also, we still can’t connect that illegal chemical in the truck to them. The driver has refused to talk, and someone posted bail and he has gone off the map. So if we did a raid the U.S. laws would give them a decent fine, but they could just purchase the property and continue on. It is the fact that they were trying to be secretive that makes me suspicious, and in America you can’t get a warrant to search something just because it was hidden.”

James started to protest, but Gordge knew what he was going to say and cut him off, “And even if we didn’t involve the U.S. government we wouldn’t get anything more. Since someone let them find out that we were infiltrating they have more than likely cleared any damning evidence out. So we would have nothing to ding them on, Armstrong would never allow us to shut them down with this amount of evidence. Speaking of evidence, ILIM, what have you found in the amount of data that we did retrieve?”

 It was important that Gordge changed the subject quickly. James could argue a point, but Gordge knew that another infiltration would yield no further fruit. He didn’t want to pull the outrank card.

ILIM replied, his line mouth morphing to an oval then back again as he spoke, “Yes, I have analyzed the data and it seems that the mainframe organized its files alphabetically, and the first folder in that was accounting. We were able to retrieve the entirety of that folder. That will assist us in investigating your point on who is backing the laboratory. The next folder was acquisitions. This is things on the que for purchase. A few chemicals that could give us clues, and also scientists and technicians that they are trying to recruit. We did not however get the entirety of this folder, so we only have four chemicals, two possible recruits, and then just standard cleaning supplies that any workplace, legal or not, would need.”

“Okay, thanks IL. Let me write those down on the board.” Gordge drew a line down the center of the board then on one side wrote ‘accounting’, and on the right, ‘acquisitions’. He then subdivided the board further with a vertical line splitting each half. These became ‘T’ charts with the left column being, ‘What we have’ and the right column, ‘How we can use it’.

“ILIM, please list of the different accountings,” Gordge said over his shoulder, chalk poised to transcribe what IL said. “First we’ve got funding, just like income amounts, and amounts on expenditures. Then we’ve got banking things. It has account numbers and the like. Locations of the places they have moved the money through, and the different routes and groupings that the money has taken.”

Gordge finished writing the words ‘funding’ and ‘banking’, then turned back around to the group. “Okay. Ideas on what we should do with all this data.” ILIM remained silent. Gordge and James didn’t program the model quite to the point of original thought. Gordge turned his focus toward James.

“James?” He asked. The younger man was looking intently at his computer screen, clicking through what appeared to be the stolen files. Gordge waited a second then spoke again, “Do you have anything James?”

James looked up with a start, his blue eyes meeting Gordge’s cameras, “Yes. I actually was looking through the banking folder, and the banks are located around the world, so their locations won’t give us any clues as to the original source of the money. We could follow the path backwards, getting clues and names until we find the original source then go from there.”

“Yes. I suppose. That will take a while, but...” Gordge trailed off as he began to write ‘follow banks to source’ but stopped, a thought occurring to him. “No, I don’t believe that will work. By the time we get along on the trail, they will have closed the accounts, essentially cutting off the path.”

James frowned. Gordge knew James well enough to know that the thing that bothered James the most was having a bad idea. But Gordge also knew that James was brilliant enough to have more than just that idea. James’s face returned to a thoughtful expression.

“Okay,” James said, seemingly to himself, “The banking files are useless. With the funding files we can search pools of accounting for transfer amounts that match up. It isn’t proof that they are involved, but it can give us a place to start.”

It seemed that James was finally warming up. Gordge’s metallic mouth formed into a smile. This was when the meeting got good. Gordge started furiously writing as James started talking.

“From what I’ve seen the records from the lab show transfers from an unknown source to them. It just lists the total amount. Of course that amount was split up as it transferred through their web of banks, but it was most likely that exact amount when it was at the poles. If we can get approval to access the records for all companies that have sufficient capital to give away this amount of money, then we can search these records for transfers that match these exact amounts. ILIM, the amounts are more obscure amounts, not nice even dollars or quarters right?” The simple face on the screen nodded and James continued, “Okay. That will narrow down our search greatly. Then we can put a watch on the names of the recruits. Perhaps some would be willing to talk, and give us enough details to isolate a single company. If not we can just watch and get clues that way. Hopefully that will be enough to find the front company. To figure out what they are doing, we can look at compounds that have those four chemicals in them, along with the chemical we found in the truck.”

James stopped, breathing heavily. Gordge finished the last few words. “Thank you James,” Gordge replied, “Well. Let’s split up the tasks. ILIM, start looking into the accounting records we have, and cross check them with the ones we stole. I’ll work on getting the rest of the Master’s database from Armstrong. James, you talk to Master Okoye, and set up some surveillance for those recruits. And once I get IL those files I will look into the chemical compounds.”

ILIM nodded, then his interface disappeared from the screen. James acknowledged Gordge’s assignment, then focused back in on his computer. Gordge left the computer/conference room and crossed the condo to his personal quarters.

***

The CRR was stationed in Los Angeles, their equipment and base inside a large condo. They transformed the largest room into their laboratory and the second largest into the computer room. The remaining rooms served as bedrooms, bathrooms—Though James was the only agent who needed them—, an armory, and kitchen.

Gordge walked into his room, his cameras dilating to adjust for the darkness, and his systems on standby for night-vision. He opened a window letting in the late morning light. His cameras readjusted. Gordge sat down on his bed. It wasn’t commonly known that artificial intelligences benefited from sleep. It gave the system time to back-propagate all the information gained throughout the day, and cool down the circuits. On top of that Gordge’s parents had programmed the need for sleep into him. It was inconvenient at times, but he supposed that parents couldn’t raise a child that didn’t sleep. Even if it was robotic.

A few taps on the screen that was installed in the wall brought up the video call program. Gordge selected Armstrong’s name from a list of contacts. The program went into a dialing screen while it waited for Armstrong to answer. After a few minutes of watching the screen, Gordge laid back on his bed to think. Armstrong was probably meeting with someone. They had let him know earlier that they would need to speak with him about the information they had gained from the mission, but being the behind the scenes ruler of the world tended to fill one’s schedule pretty quickly. Gordge found it ironic that the peak of Neil Armstrong’s fame had come long before the peak of his power had.

When Armstrong had become the first man on the moon he’d only been an agent of the Master’s branch for Aerospace Research, and had been working with the branch of Government Infiltration and Persuasion as the Master’s inside man on NASA. Now that he had risen in the Master’s organization, most of the world thought him dead.

Hopefully he would approve them the accounting records that they needed. Gordge didn’t see why he wouldn’t. However, what they would do once they used the records to find this front company. That might be a harder sell.

A beeping indicated that Armstrong was ready to speak. Gordge sat up then stood in front of the screen.

“Hello Master Gordge,” Armstrong said. He was getting old. The Masters had technologies to help slow this, but even those couldn’t do everything. Thankfully the Grandmaster wasn’t required to do much physically, “What do you have to report about the information you gained from the lab.”

“Grandmaster Armstrong, I have had the data looked over by our I.L.I.M, and we only managed to get two of their file-folders before having to flee from the premises. One of those folders was accounting, and has their data of money taken in along with some banking data. We wish to request access to the entire database of business accounting so that we can cross check the records and find potential matches for a front company of this secret lab.”

“Gordge, there isn’t really any need to be so formal. As long as you aren’t sloppy. How conclusive will this evidence be?”

“Sorry sir. We have about 120 data points of money transfers, so we were thinking that if at least 25% of those matched up, to the cent, to any specific company then we would look farther into them using the remaining data that we have. If even more then that matches up we might request to do an infiltration.”

“Hmm. Well, I suppose with the possibility of multiple fronts and or multiple labs, 25% is good enough to dive into further. However, come to me with more conclusive evidence than this if you need to do an infiltration. I’ll get someone to give you access to the accounting database. Make sure these people don’t know that you are on to their front company. Your agent James’s failure will already make them suspicious. Be careful, and keep up the good work.” With that the Grandmaster logged off of the video call. Gordge shut down his wall-computer and headed back to the computer room to work with ILIM on matching the records.

***

Gordge impatiently swung his legs as he sat on the table, waiting as the matches popped into the list. Gordge supposed that he had nervous habits programmed into him, though he wasn’t sure how specific they were. Perhaps the algorithm just decided based on his actions, personality, and environment.

A progress bar in the top right of the screen slowly counted up as the program ran through the massive data set that Armstrong had given them. The bar hit 50%. This first half of the data set had 283 matches for exact transitions, but only 20 companies met the 25% requirement. 20 was still a lot to look through. Hopefully James would be able to get something to narrow that down to only 1.

A sudden thought came to Gordge, “IL, did we put constraints in this program that made sure the transactions happened on similar dates?”

ILIM’s simple face adopted a thoughtful expression. That indicated that his attention was turned inward on the computer instead of outward toward his user. His face returned to normal, “No we did not. Would you like me to add some?”

Gordge smacked a metal palm against his flat metal face. “Yes,” He said frustrated for not thinking of this earlier, “Please do. Base the range on the length of the bank path. Each transfer takes a little bit of time, and with a web as convoluted as theirs it could be multiple days before a package of money gets from one end to the other.”

A few seconds passed, then IL spoke again, “Alright. I’ve added a constraint of plus or minus four days. That is factoring in the time it takes for the money to travel through the banks and potential human error.”

“Good. Thanks. Let’s run it again,” Gordge commanded. The program started again, progress bar at zero and list blank, however the progress bar moved much faster this time. By the time the program went through the whole database there was only one company name on the list, the Babylonian Casino.

“Okay IL, find me everything you can about this place. I’m going to go find James and see what he has.” Gordge stood up and walked excitedly to the door. He was reaching for the door knob when the door burst open, knocking Gordge to the side. James rushed in and slapped a stack of papers down on the table, then looked around. “Where’s Gordge?” He inquired confusedly.

ILIM gestured toward the wall on James’s left. James found Gordge and offered him hand up. Gordge accepted the hand, then jumped up on the table, looking down over the papers.

“I think I’m onto something,” James started, “Just looking into these guys’ pasts and locations, I’ve found a pattern. I didn’t even need to contact Okoye. All of these names have one connection.”

James pointed to a name on one of the scattered sheets of paper. The Babylonian Casino in Las Vegas.

The thing I would most appreciate feedback on is verb choice, and characters. Thanks!

Oh! I just remembered 1 more thing. What do you think of having Armstrong as a character. It might be weird considering that he is a famous historical person, and also dead. I don't know. What do you guys think?

Edited November 11, 2020 by Mage

[Frustration]

Do you have a special connection to Armstrong?

because if not then why?

[Mage]

 

35 minutes ago, Frustration said:

Do you have a special connection to Armstrong?

Not really. But I think that it demonstrates what the Guild of Masters is, by showing where they have spread their influence. Armstrong was an agent for the Masters who was infiltrating NASA. After his landing on the moon, he continued to rise through the hierarchy of the Guild until he became Grandmaster. I also feel like it would relate to the reader better. They know who Neil Armstrong is, and can then somewhat relate more to the story. I probably could do it with a fictional character.

[Trutharchivist]

Well, it is a nice story, though as you noted, most of us prefer fantasy.

It's a bit weird that they act as if it would be a best case scenario, than everything goes wrong and they don't seem to panic for a moment. I don't exactly get why a robot modelled after a kid would be wanted on a classified mission, and though you've wrote multiple times that Jason usually doesn't get to do field work, it is implied he did such things before, so this point isn't exactly clear.

except for that, it seems like a nice story, and I might read it. You shouldn't really care too much for my opinion; I'm pretty much locked on fantasy.

wrote this about the first chapter, didn't read the second.

Edited November 11, 2020 by Trutharchivist

[Mage]

5 minutes ago, Trutharchivist said:

Well, it is a nice story, though as you noted, most of us prefer fantasy.

It's a bit weird that they act as if it would be a best case scenario, than everything goes wrong and they don't seem to panic for a moment. I don't exactly get why a robot modelled after a kid would be wanted on a classified mission, and though you've wrote multiple times that Jason usually doesn't get to do field work, it is implied he did such things before, so this point isn't exactly clear.

except for that, it seems like a nice story, and I might read it. You shouldn't really care too much for my opinion; I'm pretty much locked on fantasy.

Thanks for the feedback. I'll get into Gordge's backstory more, but maybe I should give a little more up front so that people aren't confused. And you're right, that other point is a bit unclear. I'll take a look at that and see what I can do to fix that error.