Popping in the fresh magazine he thumbed the safety and returned it to its holster.
“This is Throne, actual. Team leaders, cart your wounded and dead back to HQ. Telemedics are to prioritize Legion.” Felix paused to consider the fallen enemies. Smirking to himself, he made the choice. “Power sausage the enemy wounded. Pile the dead.”
Apparently Felix’s dour mood was shared with his people, as he could actually hear the collective dark chuckle.
“Mole actual, this is Worm. We have contact,” said Eva’s voice over the high level security channel.
Felix turned his head down and to one side, pulling up the Eva’s camera with a thought.
Everything was more or less how he left it. Eva was pressed up to the door with her forehead touching the wood.
“Need a time on the hole. Farmer is about to notice,” Eva said again.
“Mole actual reads. One minute on the hole,” Kit said into the void.
“This is Worm, actual,” Miu said into her headset. “Moving to Hole. Prepping.”
The Fixer and Miu got up and went to the portal, stepping through it and to the other side. Back into SC:HQ, he imagined.
Eva twisted the lock into place on the door and moved to the portal and then stepped through.
She was staring back at the side of the computer and its missing Ethernet cable.
Felix knew that it’d be ideal if they could do this without being caught. Information was always best when it was retrieved with no one the wiser.
Turning her head around, Eva gave Felix a good view of where the portal opened up to.
Sitting in a rolling office chair was Kit. A tablet held in one hand, she was watching the tablet and the portal in equal measure.
She was surrounded by a crew of what could only be IT computer engineers who were all working on laptops that were wired into a router. That router had the Ethernet cord from the guild splitting the network feed between them.
An IT dungeon. They’re all working to crack the network.
Near the rear of the room was a handful of men and women in black suits with SMGs pointed towards the portal. Their fingers were inside the trigger guards and it was clear to him they were ready to fire.
Good protocol. This portal is a way into the base as much as it is a way into the guild. We should build a portal control room where we can launch sorties out of, and defend too.
Should probably talk to Felicia about it. Her machine would need to be moved wherever we put the launch room.
“Done. Everyone log out, I’ll leave the connection open as if I forgot to shut down,” said one of the engineers.
Everyone else started typing furiously into their laptops. Each of them closed their laptop lid after they finished whatever it was they were doing.
The engineer who’d spoken reached out and unplugged the guild cord from the router and held it out to Eva.
“Good to go,” he said.
Eva snatched the cord and ducked into the room. She was halfway in, and halfway out when someone started banging on the office door.
There were muffled shouts that were clearly punctuated by a curse.
Flinching, Eva dropped the cord. Immediately she bent down to grab it.
Smashing her forehead into the desk in the process.
Pressing one hand to her head, she grabbed the cord and then slipped it into the network port in the back of the computer.
Stepping back quickly she came back into the IT dungeon.
Kit shut the portal without any visible gesture as the sound of a door being opened could be heard.
“We’ll have data in a day or two. It’s all there though. Once we were in the network it was over. That was a lot easier than spending weeks trying to break in first,” said one of the engineers.
Felix couldn’t help but nod at that.
He could only imagine it was significantly easier being on a network line inside of the building.
“Alright. Good work. Let’s get this all spun up. I’ll need to let Felix know about it and send him a status report,” Kit said. “You alright, Eva?”
“Yeah, I’m fine. Smacked my head pretty good,” Eva said.
He couldn’t see it, but Felix imagined it was probably more than a smack. The noise that came through the microphone was pretty loud.
“Alright. Good work everyone, you’re all dismissed to return to your posts,” Kit said. Everyone got up and immediately left, catching the intention behind her words.
Kit then got up and came over to Eva.
Felix felt his heart speed up a notch with how close Kit was to the camera.
She tilted Eva’s head to one side and began to inspect the injury.
“It’s going to be a heck of a bruise. We’ll need to make sure Felix doesn’t see it. He worries incessantly over you,” Kit murmured. “It might even be worth asking Felicia to put you in one of the tanks for a few minutes.”
“Huh? He doesn’t worry about me. He doesn’t worry about anything,” Eva said.
Kit released Eva’s head and chuckled softly.
“You forget I’ve seen inside his head. He’s done quite a bit of worrying over you. He’s also done a lot of things to protect you,” Kit said. “You’re probably the closest thing he values to what he’d consider family.”
Felix felt panic rising up in his heart. If she told her what he’d done, she’d want to go on many more missions. He’d have to tell her about the changes he’d made in her and how little they cost point-wise to do.
“What? Really? What exactly—”
“This is Throne, actual,” Felix said, activating his microphone and interrupting Eva. “Status report on operation Farmer.”
Kit’s eyes immediately flicked to the camera on Eva’s head. The corner of her mouth quirked upward as she stared into it.
“This is Mole, actual. Operation Farmer was a success,” Kit said knowingly. She didn’t openly call him out on it, but he was certain she’d considered it. “Expect a report within two hours.”
“Thank you. Throne actual, out,” Felix said and closed his mic.
“He was watching the OP, wasn’t he,” Eva said. Felix had no idea where she made that jump in logic, but he was proud for a moment, before being horrified that the conversation hadn’t stopped.
“He was. Pretty sure he still is. And he’s not watching from just any camera either. Want to guess which camera? Or rather, whose camera?” Kit asked, still looking into the recording device.
“Mine? I don’t… he really worries that much? About me?” Eva asked uncertainly.
Kit didn’t say anything to that.
“Felix? Can you hear me right now?” Eva asked.
He contemplated not saying anything. Then realized it would only damage their relationship.
“Yeah,” Felix said into her comm alone. “I’m here. We’ll talk later.”
“Ok. Thank you, Felix,” Eva said.
Felix disconnected from the camera and went back to work.
He had a campaign to plan.
Chapter 13 - Quid Pro Quo -
Felix was staring down at the after action report on his desk. They’d finished up their operations in Tilen this morning. The national guard had shown up and taken control over the situation.
Luckily for them, the situation was already under control. All that was left to do was maintain the peace.
Legion had lost thirty-some odd security officers, two Fixers, and a single Warden.
Of those lost, everyone had signed the resurrection request to be brought back.
Felix sighed and tapped the report with a thumb.
Which means I’ll be converting gold bricks for points later.
Part of the contract for resurrection was putting aside enough pay to purchase five pounds of gold. The gold was purchased in advance for the person signing the contract, and the pay was deducted on the back-end over time.
In the case of death, Felix would convert the gold to something worthless, like dirt, and use the points to resurrect people.