Chrome Symphony - Chapter 2

Duncan had been watching the chess game. Not much conversation had transpired beyond some small talk. No real information had been disclosed in the banter among the players, each playing a game between each other.

Duncan finally spoke up. "You'll be checkmated in three moves," he said to one of the players. The player chuckled. After three more moves, Duncan's prediction was realized. The player sighed. "Dammit," the anonymous chess player said. "I'm no good at chess."

Duncan sat back. "It's just one of those things where you have to relax and think of the overall picture, planning your moves in advance and adjusting your strategy as things unfold," he said. The losing player rolled his eyes. "Usually I'm good with strategy. I'm sure you're aware that we've hit a gold mine with our latest plan."

Duncan was surprised that the player would so quickly assume that he was one of them. "Well, I've been a little distracted with some other ideas that we're cooking up, but I got a brief overview earlier," he bluffed. Duncan hoped that he wouldn't be asked to elaborate; he had very little useful information as to the Herei Mob Army's plans.

"We're not supposed to discuss it outside of secured channels," the player said. "Although, we've had some morons with loose lips in some of the other rooms."

Duncan laughed. "Why people choose to avoid encrypted channels is beyond me." Duncan then decided to take a risk and use something he had gathered from the night before. If this works, I might get an easy way in to an encrypted channel, he mused. If this doesn't work, I'm going to have to log the entire group out immediately.

"Yeah, you know about shipment A678, the one we intercepted a quarter after noon today?" Duncan said to the player.

"Oh, you're part of that group? Nice job!" the player commented. "Send me your address so I can give you the key to a secure channel. I want to discuss something privately."

Duncan became very nervous. Don't screw this up. You'll have to bluff your way through this.

"Okay. It's rds2937122@maskedmail.privacy.org."

Duncan opened a couple of terminals outside of the virtual space. Although it was mentally stressful to exist in two virtual spaces at once while diving, he managed to keep himself focused enough to compromise the temporary e-mail account and gain access. He saw the message from the anonymous HMA address and used the attached key to enter the secure channel. He closed the other two virtual spaces so that he could exist solely in the secured channel.

The player appeared in front of him in the otherwise empty, intimidating room.

"That weapons shipment never arrived. The EMA building went up a few hours before it was supposed to get there. That means some other group likely intercepted it amid the chaos," the player said.

Duncan suddenly received a message from Jess. A few seconds later, a message arrived from Shell. He quickly read them so as not to appear too distracted from the avatar standing before him.

"Yes. We had plans to send it to the asteroid base on NE726," he replied, using the newly obtained information from Jess and Shell. "Our new ace in the hole from Crest has to be heavily guarded, after all."

The anonymous player nodded. "Right, that makes sense. I'm glad we still ended up with that shipment."

Whew, Duncan thought to himself, trying not to show his relief to the player. Thanks, Shell and Jess.

Duncan continued. "It's a matter now of obtaining transportation to that destination so we can get that shipment to the crew we have up there."

The player nodded again. "Of course. We're working on that. Herei is going to hijack a cargo shuttle at the dock tonight. It's going to be at Dock 10-B at the main space port in the Western district. Have your people get the weapons shipment on board that shuttle and we'll take care of the rest."

YES! Duncan thought to himself.

"Thanks. We'll get that set up for you," Duncan replied to the player. Duncan exited the room and joined Shell and Jess outside of the Herei Mob Army's discussion area.

Outside, Jess, Shell, Atlas, Renk, and Elise were waiting.

After sharing their information, the pieces of the puzzle began to come together.

"It looks like we've found your father, Jess," Duncan explained. "He's the high-value captive they're holding on Near Earth Asteroid 726."

Jess looked around. "So we'll have to come up with that weapons shipment in order to get aboard the hijacked shuttle, somehow," she replied.

"Right. We'll need to come up with a plan as to how to get aboard and make their guys think the shipment is good to go," said Duncan.

"The easiest way to do that," Elise suggested, "is to acquire a shipment. The problem would be figuring out what all they're expecting. Or, well, who took their original one." Her avatar shrugged.

"What I don't get, is why hasn't Crest just gone in with one of their own heavy assault teams. I'm pretty sure they shouldn't have a problem storming anywhere..." Elise trailed off in thought, when the entire rest of the matrix, most notably the people milling around, flickered for a moment. "Did anyone else notice a visual glitch just now," she asked.

"Yeah...I caught something strange, too, some kind of flicker," Duncan commented.

"That's not a normal thing, is it," Jess asked.

The sudden appearance of a stranger within their midst was, to say the least, a surprise. The new avatar popped up out of nowhere, and looked like a woman in her mid-30s, dressed in a labcoat and fairly ordinary clothes under it. The glasses and loose ponytail helped finish the scientist look. Elise had immediately jumped a few feet back and dropped into a fighting stance, not that it would do much good against someone who could just pop into virtual existence.

"...Good, looks like I found the right people. Sorry about the surprise visit," the scientist spoke up after carefully studying the group for a while. "I've been keeping an eye on a few of you, and didn't want to miss this chance to speak face to face, so to speak." She smiled. "I represent a group that has some...interests on Earth, and could use a little help in that department."

"Should we really be speaking about this openly," Elise asked.

"Oh, don't worry about that, I've got the lot of us in a nice little private bubble, nobody else is privy to this conversation." Sure enough, it seemed like everyone else was just going about their business as if nothing unusual had happened.

"Just what the hell kind of person has that much power on the 'net?"

"Don't worry about that for now." The mystery lady waved the question away. "I can't go there myself, or I would. So what I need are a few operatives to do a little job for us. I can't promise it'll be easy, but it's important. I want you to extract someone from an EMA facility and get them to us."

Elise had by now dropped into the usual routine for negotiating with a potential employer. "And where, exactly, would that be?"

"The facility's planetside, hidden from prying eyes out away from the big cities. I've got the location on file, but I couldn't get close enough to get any detailed layouts. It's...pretty well-guarded. As for where you'd be bringing that person of interest, I'll meet you on one of the L1 colonies. My people can arrange passage." A spacer? That explained a few things, if half the rumors were true. The timing was either too convenient, or anything but, as they had another route up the gravity well, which would be far more direct. But maybe they could come to an agreement...

Elise looked at the rest of the group. "Well, what do you think?" Best to let everyone weigh in, particularly if they'd be putting their own lives on the line as part of whatever they could be getting into.

"Crest is probably tied up in all of the confusion surrounding what happened to the EMA building. They're likely to assume that they are the next target," Renk replied to Elise.

"The EMA facility in question is one of the most heavily fortified installations in the area," Renk said, carefully eyeing the AI woman in front of him. "What you're asking is something more appropriate for a well-equipped paramilitary force."

Renk's expression changed. "Which... until this morning, my squadron was scheduled to perform."

Thinking for a moment and choosing his words carefully, Renk addressed the mysterious AI again after Elise asked everyone for their input. "The cargo shuttle hijack operation would actually be far more dangerous. I will need to request some additional resources if we do this."

Renk looked at Jess. "Miss Price, if we accept this mission, we would likely have easy access to the weapons factory afterward. That asteroid is going to cross near that Lagrange point soon, so it wouldn't be far to go."

"The cargo shuttle hijack is absolutely out of the question!" Jess exclaimed. "I refuse to work with the Herei Mob Army. We'll have to find another way."

After the AI appeared and Elise asked the group what they thought, Jess responded, "This sounds like an almost serendipitous opportunity." Jess looked at Duncan. "First, though, I want to know how you knew it was my father's rescue that I was after," she asked.

"Miss Price, you mentioned something to the doctor back when I was having my upgrade," Duncan said to Jess. "You said you were the daughter of the head of Crest. I had intercepted some e-mails the night before that tipped me off that your father had been dealing with some antagonists. The fact that you obviously have lots of money, enough to pay for our upgrades and give us advance payment also tipped me off."

"What?! Why didn't you tell me this before?" Jess asked.

"I wanted to make certain my conclusions were correct," replied Duncan.

"I see. Well, I guess I should have been more up front from the beginning," she said.

"It sounds like our best bet," Atlas replied. "From the intel I gathered earlier, it sounds like Herei's also got some kind of big weapon in development on NEA726. Helping the enemy hijack a shuttle seems like a questionable method, any way you look at it."

Renk replied, "The only advantage of that option would be that we would get to NEA726 faster."

Atlas shook his head. "It all depends on how we went about producing the cargo that the Herei Mob Army expected. If they inspected the cargo, we'd be in deep s*** anyway."

Looking at Jess, Atlas told her, "I know time is of the essence but we need to be strategic. We can't afford to be reckless. If we help her first, we're more likely to get support should things get ugly at the weapons factory."

Atlas looked back at the mysterious scientist. "About how much time would you estimate it would take for this operation," he asked her.