Chapter Seventeen

Three different videos played on different screens. Matomaru joined his boss in the search. Fast Mover watched, for all the good it’d do. The boss expected his golden goose to pay off. What Haruki found, though, was the motherlode. Thank the gods for you, the boss thought. A combination of luck and American paranoia meant that Haruki’s team set off some procedural action. That allowed them to steal the Americans’ hard drives containing all their surveillance and computer data.

“I’m surprised,” Matomaru said, “that they’d allow such a weak point to be exploited.”

“If governments can be counted on for one thing,” Kensuke replied, “it’s cheapness. Politicians are penny pinchers who never fail to find extra money they can siphon into their own pockets.”

Both recognized the irony of money versus security. Hiring an outside data destruction service might be cheaper, but even the best security around a third party couldn’t stop all the possible leaks.

Fast Mover sipped at an iced coffee and watched as Samantha Bordman, the true face behind Freedom’s Ring, went about her sheltered life. Kensuke came to the end of a video and loaded the next one. The hero asked, “find anything useful?”

“Oh,” Kensuke argued, “everything’s useful, it’s just a matter of finding the most useful thing.” The boss had to admire the fortitude of the African American woman. She was America’s most valuable asset, the source of the power. If one Freedom’s Ring died, they could be easily replaced. She, however, could not. So, America kept her under dozens of layers of anti-bunker buster shielding. He wondered how she avoided going insane, even if all her needs were met.

Matomaru jerked forward and slammed the space bar, pausing a video. “There!”

Both the boss and the hero stepped forward to look.

“That,” Kensuke said, “that’s her moving about the facility unnoticed by security.”

“Huh?” Fast Mover asked.

“Look,” Matomaru said, playing the video.

“Holy crap,” Fast Mover uttered, watching the security office feeds on one video synched up to Samantha Bordman’s movements. “When she turned down that hall, all the security systems turned off.”

They watched more videos, and sure enough, when she entered an area, all the pressure plates, motion sensors, cameras, and other security measures vanished until she left the area. “Makes sense,” Fast Mover commented, “I’d go nuts too if I didn’t have some privacy.”

“So,” Matomaru said, “she isn’t monitored.”

“Are you sure?” Kensuke asked.

Matomaru slapped fist into palm. “Right! I get it! How would the systems automatically know it’s her?”

Kensuke pulled out his government phone. “Connect me to Big Data, if you please.”

Matomaru raised eyebrows. “You think Big Data is necessary?”

“Of course,” Kensuke replied. “I didn’t have something specific to look for, otherwise I’d have called him in already.” The phone beeped and made a few squelching noises. “Big Data? I’ve got something specific for you to look up. Search through the data we’ve collected and find how the Americans’ security systems automatically know when the target enters a room.”

“Sure,” Big Data said over the phone. The screens flickered a few times as the technopathic super connected to the systems. A strobe effect of videos being searched in moments lit up the room. Big Data’s voice came over the speakers as a set of images appeared on multiple screens. “Sir, I’ve found what you’re looking for.”

The three read the screen. Matomaru whistled. “An electromagnetic tattoo?” He blinked. “I’ve never heard of that before.”

Big Data read off what he found. “They tattooed an electromagnetic substance somewhere on her body. It changes according to her body’s natural electrical potential, moisture, and gives off a magnetic signal that sensors pick up on and disable any security in the room she’s in.”

“I suppose,” Matomaru speculated, “you’re less worried about internal security thirty layers deep in a bunker.”

“How’d you find it?” Fast Mover asked.

“It’s severely encrypted,” Big Data said. “If I wasn’t technopathic, I wouldn’t have been able to crack it.”

“Can you give us the pattern?” Matomaru asked.

“No,” Big Data replied. “Because it isn’t constant. It changes regularly. What I can do, however, is give you the equation by which the sensor knows whether or not the changing signal belongs to her.”

“Excellent!” Kensuke cried. He snapped his finger and pointed at Fast Mover. “Bring Haruki here. He’s going to be doing Spirit of Lightning training.”

Haruki sat cross-legged in the meditation room. His fire suppressed, he focused solely on the electromagnetic currents in and on his skin. A sensor tuned to the specifics of the American system sat next to him, ready to remind him of failure. Once Big Data located the actual surveillance data of the tattoo itself, they reverse-engineered its location and size.

“Remember,” the technopathic hero said, “they thought a static, unchanging magnetic field would be the first thing an intruder thought of, so the field has to change according to the pattern.”

“No pressure,” Haruki quipped.

He modulated the electrical pathways in his body. The pattern changed mathematically, and converting electrical math to internal effort took several minutes. Just getting the basic shifts right took a dozen minutes more. His mind strained to its limits. His electromagnetic signal began to fool the sensor, with a faint whirr of the internal mechanism.

“BZZT!”

The alarm went off.

“Damn it!” Haruki swore.

He got up and grabbed a bottle of cola from the hallway fridge. Between sips, his mind drifted to the friends he’d made. Regardless of Rachel’s involvement in the conspiracy, her company had been a welcome boon. His immersion in American culture might not have happened save for her. When all the bad guys were gone and all the battles fought, he wanted to hang out with her again.

Kenshi was the other thought to occupy his mind. The boy became a light in his life, even if it’d been brief thus far. He eagerly looked forward to his company. He hoped when all his exams or whatever were done, the parents would stop being so strict and let him hang out again.

He sent a text to Fast Mover before returning to his meditation.

After an hour, he could fool the sensor for five whole minutes. To others, five minutes might be impossibly short. To Haruki, it meant all the difference. Kensuke brought him back into the briefing room and showed him several videos, before saying, “What you’ll need to do is search the facility for any details that might root out Aeriesai.”

“If there’s one place they wouldn’t expect us to get into,” Haruki said, “it’s the most surveilled American facility.”

Kensuke checked his watch. “It’s night time in America, so go there, get some sleep, and first thing in the morning, you try to get in.”

Matomaru jerked in surprise. “He’s only good enough for five minutes!” He approached. “Are you sure?”

“Five minutes,” Kensuke said, “is all we’re going to get.” He turned. “Right?”

Haruki pondered the situation. “If I trained another four or five days’ worth, I feel I’d be able to get it up to ten minutes.”

“We may not have that long,” Kensuke said.

“I’ll see what I can find,” Haruki said, and took off.

Ignoring time requirements, he flew as fast as he could, making it back to his team in under fifteen minutes. Once there, he reiterated everything that happened back home, and the details of the plan.

“So,” Operative said, considering, “tomorrow, you’re going to get into the base and look for clues? Do you even know what to look for that wouldn’t be on the security hard drives?”

Haruki pondered. “Ideally, it’d be locations or plans. Aeriesai wouldn’t put those on hard drives that leave the facility. Maybe it’s something other than documents or files. Maybe it’s some artifact or something.”

“If he uses her projection power to change bodies,” Combat Queen speculated, “maybe he’s got something in the facility that connects to her?”

“Excellent point,” Operative replied.

“We’ll discuss it tomorrow morning,” Haruki said. “Tonight? Sleep.”

The team looked at each other. “Sleep,” they agreed.

Fast Mover brought them food and drinks, and they ate, washed up, and prepared their gear before sleeping. Each of the beds in the abandoned house held two of the team, and Haruki slept on the couch. When he closed his eyes, his fire returned, and any discomfort vanished, and he slipped off to dreams.