As far as Felix knew, it was one of a kind and wasn’t likely to be replicated without serious effort. Dimitry was the only one off network, after all.
Both Skippercity and Tilen were connected through a “portal network” that Felicia had installed. They were linked to the same network, closed off from the outside world, and completely hardened. The only way to access the Internet was using specific terminals put in place with that purpose. To Felix, it was a ton of infrastructure he was glad to have, but had no idea how it had all come to be.
That’s proper management though. Isn’t it? Build, train, and enable your people to make executive decisions without you. To work towards the betterment of the company, without input.
Leaders are what I need, not grunts.
Sighing Felix stared out across the buildings below him. The Skippercity HQ had been brought up to the same height as the Tilen HQ building. Everything was mirrored both ways. The buildings were twins of one another.
A calling card, is the way Felicia put it. A Legion HQ would always be noticed.
And a wonderful distraction since we all live underground.
A breeze blew up over his shoulders and Felix hunched into his jacket. Miu had told him to be up here. She had accomplished her meeting and was bringing what he’d asked for.
“It’s cold,” Andrea said from beside him. She pressed her side up to his and then pressed her icy hands to his sides.
“Damn, your hands are like a freezer,” Felix complained. He didn’t push her away though. It was only her and him up here right now.
Kit was only a text and a portal away.
Felix had realized that she out of everyone was best utilized as a hub, and asked her to remain at Tilen HQ. At least until Felicia could put in a secure portal network that could be accessed from outside either HQ. One that would protect itself from someone getting hold of a portal device and using it against them.
For now, Kit was their impromptu taxi service. Being used to send and receive Legion agents from all over the country.
“I don’t like Fall. Or Winter. I like Spring and Summer,” Andrea whined.
“You can go inside. It’s just Miu,” Felix said. “She’s not going to hurt me in any way.”
“Nn… I know… I just want to be with you,” Andrea said, her head dipping down and pressing into his shoulder.
Felix couldn’t help but smile and lifted a hand to lightly scratch at the base of her ears. “Ok. Promise me you’ll head inside when you truly get cold though. No sense in both of us freezing.”
Before she could respond, Andrea’s head lifted up, her ears twitching around almost randomly.
Her hands slipped to her waist and came back up with a pistol. She aligned the barrel with the sky above them and began tracking something.
“What’s wrong? You’re all—”
Felix was interrupted by something flashing down from above. He saw a flash of Miu, and realized she was coming down fast. As if she’d jumped from something above them or teleported there.
She crashed down onto the roof, the thump of her feet making him wonder if she’d just broken her legs or ankles. She fell to one knee casually, as if landing as she did had been nothing more than a hop.
A second later a Fixer landed behind her. Apparently the power this one had chosen for travel had been flight.
The Fixer was dressed in standard Legion security combat attire with the Fixer rank insignia affixed to their collar.
“Sir,” the Fixer said.
Miu stood up only after catching Felix’s eyes with her own. Her hands moved to a sack attached to her belt. Unfastening the drawstrings, she reached in and scooped out its contents. With a wet splat, she dropped a severed head to the ground between them.
Eying the bloody spectacle, Felix realized it was the cop they’d turned. Brought into fold as it were.
“He was using every possible avenue to press the bounds of the contract. He was slowly letting information out about the Legion. Not enough to be harmful, but that’s the reason why the Skippercity agent was there,” the Fixer said. “Or that’s my guess. They’d gleaned some information from the police and used it as a line to trace back to us.”
Nodding his head, Felix stared at the bloody head. “That contract wasn’t as enforceable without constant watch, or so Lily feared. Thank goodness she’s improved them since then. Did he suffer?”
“It was quick,” Miu said softly. “He felt no pain. The body is disposed of. He didn’t fight. I spared his family.”
“Good,” Felix murmured. “Tonight has been a real cluster-fuck. At least we caught it now, rather than later in the campaign.”
The Fixer rechecked his SMG and unloaded the magazine, and expelled the chambered round. “Permission to retire, sir.”
“Go. Thank you for your work tonight. You and your department are a credit to the Legion,” Felix said.
It wasn’t idle words either. The Telemedics and Fixers were indispensable to Legion.
And the next group, even more so, Felix thought, looking back up to the skyline as the Fixer left.
He needed spies. Spies that could slip in, read thoughts, spy, and get back out safely.
Wraith had been a starting point. Miu the logical progression for a single individual. Now he wanted a team of covert operation specialists.
They were planned to have invisibility, limited mind reading, teleportation, enhanced agility and dexterity, and some skills one would associate with thieves and pickpockets. More than likely he’d add more training to that, but that was his starting point for now.
“Felix,” Andrea said, lifting a hand and pointing to a distant speck on the horizon.
That spec was rapidly becoming a dot, then a smear, and suddenly two bodies.
There was no mistaking that they were moving at maximum speed, and heading straight for Felix’s current position.
Turning his wrist over, Felix laid his thumb on the screen. Activating, it cycled for a second before bringing up Kit’s contact information.
Miu and Andrea both got in front of him, drawing their weapons. Miu pulled out a short sword from a sheath he hadn’t noticed previously, Andrea snuggling her SMG up to her shoulder.
A woman and a man came into view. The man was dressed in bright yellow and grey. He looked the part of a Super, though that’d be strange since they were outlawed here in Skippercity.
The woman was dressed in very expensive looking clothes, and was wearing a thick fur coat.
Coming to a halt at the edge of the building, the man stepped onto the edge. Stepping down from the man’s side, the woman looked at Andrea and Miu, then dismissed them. She had eyes for Felix and Felix alone.
He gave her a quick once over, finding her neither attractive nor unattractive. She simply… was, with brown hair and blue eyes, average height, and average build.
The picture of mediocrity.
She stared at him for long seconds. Felix stared back at her, unperturbed, waiting.
“In every instance I check, you say nothing until I do. And if I do anything other than talk, you summon Augur,” said the woman. “You’re annoying.”
“A—”
“Skipper,” said the woman, crossing her arms across her chest. “My name’s Skipper. You should know it.”
Chapter 19 - Photo OP -
Thinking quickly on that, Felix considered all the possibilities. From what the woman said, it meant her power was about possibilities.
Eventualities, perhaps? Able to see what may or may not happen. What might or might not. That means that she just spent all that time staring me down to measure out all the possibilities, right? In all of those possibilities, I would have acted accordingly with my behavior.
Normally I wouldn’t try to anger the leader of the city. Her annoyance seems to stem from the fact that I would summon Kit. That means Kit is… something she doesn’t want me to do.