The next morning, I found a message from Naveen waiting for me when I woke up. Apparently, he wanted me to come to the HQ and work with the new cyber security division recruits.
I was a bit miffed about that. As an exec, I had to dress up somewhat, while I was used to comfy clothes while working from home. But what don’t you do for your company, huh?
And so, after a generous breakfast with copious amounts of coffee, I sat in my T-240, seeing the HQ coming closer.
When I reached the executive floor, the third from the top, with the top two filled by the skimmer hangar naturally, I was intercepted on the way to my office by Michael and Naveen.
“There you are. Naveen said that he called you in.”
I shrugged.
“Sure. I still don’t know why I need to be here, but whatever, here I am.”
The graying CSO rolled his eyes.
“I told you, I want you to work with our new hires for the cybersecurity division.”
Michael on the other hand shook his head.
“Please, V, I told you that you have to show some presence here. Honestly, I would like for you to be here two or three days a week. Just so that our people can actually meet with you.”
I slowly counted to ten.
“That is why I created the Incarnate. And I have one in my office. Just push a message to Warden and at worst, when I am in deep compression, it only takes around 15 minutes and I am in it. Or whoever wants to meet me can enter cyberspace.”
“That is not the same, and you know it.”
I sighed.
“It should be.”
Michael crossed his arms.
“But it isn’t. Give it a year, and it probably will be the same, but for now, many of our people are not yet comfortable with using the VR or talking to an Incarnate.”
I shook my head again.
“Fine. I’ll try.”
He sighed and shook his head as well.
“That is probably the best I can get. Now, as you are already here, there is another thing. Yesterday showed us some deficits with our security forces. Mostly we lack strategic, or even tactical mobility. When we can bring our bot armies to bear, they are devastating, but even bringing them to the other side of the East River proved to be a problem.”
I frowned.
“Wasn’t that what the Badgers were intended to solve.”
Naveen interjected.
“That was the idea, but have you seen the footage of the bridges during the horde's attack? They were jammed. No chance of pushing even one Badger through that, not to mention enough to bring a substantial number of Einherjar there. Not to mention Staten Island or New Jersey. Right now, we have no way to bring them there, should they be needed.”
“Ok, I understand, but why are you talking to me about it?”
Michael snorted.
“Basically, we want to buy assault skimmers.”
OK, not so bad an idea. Assault skimmers would give us some badly needed mobility, as well as close air support. The problem though was that a standard assault skimmer was designed to be used with human infantry.
“Assault skimmers are not particularly suited for the Einherjar, aren’t they?”
Naveen shrugged.
“They are the best option available.”
“Does that mean you intend to acquire expensive vehicles, that are only partly suited for what we need it? Vehicles that will be obsolete in half a year at most?”
Michael snorted, while Naveen turned red.
“Uh… yes. But it isn’t so bad. It will take years for the next generation of assault skimmers to become common. We should be able to get a couple of years of use out of them.”
I shook my head.
“Why? How long did it take ABAS to design the Raphael? A couple of months? And that was with a couple of completely new technologies thrown in. So contact them and commission a new assault skimmer design suited for our purposes.”
“You are aware that that will be quite a bit more expensive than getting skimmers that are already designed, right?”
“Only initially. It probably will be the first assault skimmer with the new grav coils and a tractor beam. If we design it so that the passenger compartment is a single module that can be switched out for a bot module, a cargo module, a couple of standard cargo containers, or a ground vehicle, we get an exceptionally versatile system, that will keep for decades.
That should defray some of the additional cost. Then we will likely get a small cut for our part of the design work when, not if, ABAS sells them.”
Naveen shook his head.
“That will slow down delivery considerably.“
Michael interrupted us right then.
“How long will it take for ABAS to deliver any new assault skimmers?”
Naveen shrugged.
“Two, maybe three months. Why?”
“And if we work with them on the new design?”
“Three to four months I would guess. Most of the delay comes from being on a waiting list.”
“So… if we were to grease the wheels a bit, it would not make that much of a difference. And until we get them, we keep one of our freighters on station. As long as Her Highness accepts that this will be more expensive, I have no problem with it.”
I rolled my eyes.
“Tell me, in your capacity as CEO of Enki, do you think we need those assault skimmers?”
“Yes.”
“Is it preferable to have a purpose-built design that does exactly what we need it to do?”
“Yes. Where are you going with it?”
“Can we afford to get the purpose-built design?”
“Yes, of course. It will be a couple of billion, maybe three or four, but fuck, that are the profits of two to three days.”
“So, is there any reason why you brought it to me?”
“Well, you were adamant that our military is purely defensive for the time being.”
I shook my head.
“Oh please. An assault skimmer has an effective range of what? 500km? 750 if they are long-range? It isn’t as if you are planning on an assault carrier.”
Then I saw his expression. God dang it, he was seriously thinking about buying assault carriers.
I took a deep breath and tried to calm myself down before I continued, a bit strained:
“We are not considering buying assault carriers, right?”
When both of the men began to hem and haw, without saying anything, I snarled:
“Let me rephrase that, we are not considering buying assault carriers, period!”
The older Indian gentleman raised his eyebrows on my definite statement.
“Why are you so vehemently against assault carriers?”
“An assault carrier takes as much resources, money, and personnel as three or four destroyers. And in defense, it is worth about as much as one, maybe two destroyers.
Its flight bays are designed to bring a large number of assault skimmers to any location where they might be needed, but they compromise the protection and weapon placements.
Nonetheless, it can devastate any ground force it encounters, and most fixed defenses, with its heavy, slow-firing weapons.
It has the pure firepower of a heavy cruiser, maybe even a small battleship, even if it can’t use that firepower against other grav ships.
In other words, it has only one function. Attack. It is a tool to project power. Right now, if we get one, we will send the wrong message.
If you think we really need an assault carrier, you can get one as soon as we can build it for ourselves.”
Michael frowned.
“Wait, you are not completely against assault carriers on principle, but want us to build our own? Why? And why can’t we buy some?”
I chuckled mirthlessly.
“At the point when we can build one, we will have several slips to build destroyers and cruisers already. Probably half a dozen destroyers and a couple of cruisers finished and running.
We will most likely already be working on a battleship, and yes, I realize that we need one to counter the double-As and triple-As.
But at that point, we will be secure enough and have enough standing that an assault carrier will change nothing.”
Naveen folded his arms and used his right hand to rub his chin.
“But what if we need to use the Einherjar outside of the range of an assault skimmer?”
“What would you need to use them for outside of that range? Have we anything to defend not in NYC or L5? If we are invited somewhere, we will then be able to use the facilities there to extend our range. Not that I expect that to happen anytime soon.”
He nodded slowly.
“I understand, but I don’t like it. I think we need the ability to go on the offensive.”
I placed my face in my hands and growled.
“Why? Whom would we go out to attack? We have a strong, defended position here, but outside of it, we are minnows. We don’t even register as a blip on the radar. Anybody we would need an assault carrier against will have a navy. Even a few destroyers will turn your shiny new assault carrier into so much scrap.”
I shook my head, and continued with way less heat:
“No, right now, we can’t use an assault carrier, and we don’t need one. At this moment, those things are pure prestige objects.”
After a few moments, Naveen huffed and slumped a bit.
“Fine. You are right. I want one, but we don’t really need one. Now. But sooner or later we will need one, and I hope by then we have it.”
Michael placed a hand on his shoulder.
“She is right though. Right now, we are purely defensive. Impressively defensive from what I understand, but we have essentially no option for offense. So we should not make waves. And yes, I want a capital ship as well, but yeah, it would send the wrong message.”
“Now that that is cleared, where do I find those new recruits I had to come in to talk to?”
Yes, I was a bit aggravated. Not necessarily that I had to come into the HQ, though that played a part, but mostly because I had to call the two of them back from spending a few billion dollars on a ship that we did not need, and in reality would be harmful for our position.
Naveen snorted.
“Ah yes. Those. We managed to snag a team of cyber specialists, complete with the techies, social engineers, some secondary jacks, and a good frontman.
We want you to pull them in on Blumenthal. They will be our main investigation team for the matrix. Beside Warden that is naturally.”
I shook my head again.
“Fine. I will talk with them, but where are they?”
“12th floor, Room 1238.”
I sighed and nodded to Michael before I turned around and walked to the elevator.
I walked right past Maggie, who looked at me a bit bewildered, before I heard her ask, probably one of the men:
“Huh? What is Vivian doing here today?”
I heard Michael answer her:
“We have called her in to work with some of our matrix specialists. Also…”
The rest was cut off by the closing elevator doors.
On the 12th floor, the security HQ, I had no problems finding the room in question. It was one of the briefing rooms for our security forces.
After the vanguard of my guard detail opened the door, long gone were the days when I could open doors outside of my home by myself, and we walked into the room, I saw that there were around a dozen or so men of clearly south american descent, with a generous helping of African ancestry as well.
I estimated their ages ranging from the early 20s to around 30.
I walked towards one of the older of the men, who was clearly the leader of this little group.
“Good morning. I am Vivian DuClare, and I have been asked to read you in on our target.”
The leader, probably that Ramon Gutierrez whom Naveen had told me about, smiled broadly, and walked towards me.
“Ah, so we finally meet in person. Say, what do I call you? Vivian is probably out, but is it Ms. DuClare, Dr. Duclare, or Seraphim?”
I was a bit confused when he spoke to me in heavily accented English. Did this guy think he knew me?
“Uh… sorry, but are you Ramon Gutierrez? And what do you mean by finally meeting in person?”
He stopped short and then chuckled.
“Are you telling me that you’ve never looked us up?”
I cocked my head.
“Should I have had? Why?”
He rubbed over the back of his head in an embarassed gesture.
“Uh, that is a bit awkward. I honestly thought you had looked us all up when you had the chance. But no, you are too much of the boy scout to do that.”
I shrugged.
“That tells me nothing either. And it is Girl Scout. So, why don’t you tell me where you think I should recognize you from?”
Another man, a year or two younger than Ramon, walked up to him.
“Hey, stop playing the idiot, Ramon.”
Then he turned to me.
“We all met in the Abyss. And he apparently thinks that you should have been able to put the real names of all Abyss dwellers together with the codenames.”
“The Abyss? Wait a minute, an Abyss dweller?”
Something clicked in my mind, and I understood.
“Are you saying that you are Bletchley?”
The grin on Ramon’s face was back, and he answered:
“Not anymore. But yes, I was Bletchley. But, well Colossus and I made your idea a reality, and I retired. And the name Bletchley is a legacy name that stays with the Abyss.”
I frowned.
“So… C0W8OY Trinity is now Bletchley? Not good.”
Bletch… Ramon snorted.
“Nope. Technically the one we all know as Colossus is Bletchley. It is as I said, a legacy name, and it stays with #2 of the ranking list. But as the current #1 doesn’t claim the title, and the legacy name of Colossus, the old one keeps that name. But Trinity is ‘only’ #3. So he keeps his own name, and doesn’t get any control over the Abyss.”
Ok, that was a bit better.
“So… if you are retired, what made you come here? You should have more than enough money to live the rest of your life.”
I pulled out one of the chairs and sat down, followed by Ramon and the other men who had waited in the room. The ones that were not yet sitting that is.
And Ramon was clearly a bit embarrassed again.
“Well, that is your fault, you know?”
My answer was a simple lifted eyebrow, and he hastily continued.
“I would have been happy to just lie in the sun and sip cocktails, but my fiancée decided she didn’t want to wait another two years for children. So we packed up and moved into this cold, dreary city of yours. But what don’t you do for the love of your life, huh?”
So… it was the nanobot treatment for the Folly.
“And the rest?”
Ramon shrugged.
“Well, Enrique, my brother here, you know him as CZ and his wife decided they liked the idea and came along. That brought the rest of the team into play.
They are nowhere near as financially secure as I am, or as Enrique is, so they decided that they wanted to keep working for, and with me. So, here we are.”
“I assume you can vouch for every one of them?”
Ramon nodded.
“Yes, of course. I’ve worked with each of them for a few years.”
“Ok, then welcome to the team. Though honestly, I am not so sure what we will have you do. Our cybersecurity is handled by Warden.
But whatever, we will find things for you to do. Right now… we are working on a man named Isaac Blumenthal. He is an operative. We don’t know who he works for, or what their plan is, but we know that they don’t stop from using terrorism.”
I sent a mental command to the computer in the room and the holo-projector began showing a 3D model of the man, as well as what we knew about him.
“Right now, we have barely anything, as you see. We are right now trying to get access to his computer, but it is a binary, maybe even a trinary OS.
Dedicated com line, biometric scanner, the whole works. I will give you access to everything we have, though it is not much yet.”
Ramon frowned.
“Uh, what did he do?”
I sighed.
“Did you learn about the zombie hordes yesterday? That was his doing, or more like his organization's doing.”
That made not only Ramon frown.
“Zombie horde? But… why? Why would anybody use a fucking zombie horde?”
“We don’t know. Yet. That is our mission. We have to find that out. Along with who is behind Blumenthal, and what their goals are. And then we will make them understand that we are not amused about their methods.”
Ramon and Enrique nodded solemnly.
“Yeah, I can get behind that.”
I snorted.
“Well, the good news for you is that you don’t have to buy a Seraphim Mk. VI. Not that they are that expensive, mind you.”
The next morning, I found a message from Naveen waiting for me when I woke up. Apparently, he wanted me to come to the HQ and work with the new cyber security division recruits.
I was a bit miffed about that. As an exec, I had to dress up somewhat, while I was used to comfy clothes while working from home. But what don’t you do for your company, huh?
And so, after a generous breakfast with copious amounts of coffee, I sat in my T-240, seeing the HQ coming closer.
When I reached the executive floor, the third from the top, with the top two filled by the skimmer hangar naturally, I was intercepted on the way to my office by Michael and Naveen.
“There you are. Naveen said that he called you in.”
I shrugged.
“Sure. I still don’t know why I need to be here, but whatever, here I am.”
The graying CSO rolled his eyes.
“I told you, I want you to work with our new hires for the cybersecurity division.”
Michael on the other hand shook his head.
“Please, V, I told you that you have to show some presence here. Honestly, I would like for you to be here two or three days a week. Just so that our people can actually meet with you.”
I slowly counted to ten.
“That is why I created the Incarnate. And I have one in my office. Just push a message to Warden and at worst, when I am in deep compression, it only takes around 15 minutes and I am in it. Or whoever wants to meet me can enter cyberspace.”
“That is not the same, and you know it.”
I sighed.
“It should be.”
Michael crossed his arms.
“But it isn’t. Give it a year, and it probably will be the same, but for now, many of our people are not yet comfortable with using the VR or talking to an Incarnate.”
I shook my head again.
“Fine. I’ll try.”
He sighed and shook his head as well.
“That is probably the best I can get. Now, as you are already here, there is another thing. Yesterday showed us some deficits with our security forces. Mostly we lack strategic, or even tactical mobility. When we can bring our bot armies to bear, they are devastating, but even bringing them to the other side of the East River proved to be a problem.”
I frowned.
“Wasn’t that what the Badgers were intended to solve.”
Naveen interjected.
“That was the idea, but have you seen the footage of the bridges during the horde's attack? They were jammed. No chance of pushing even one Badger through that, not to mention enough to bring a substantial number of Einherjar there. Not to mention Staten Island or New Jersey. Right now, we have no way to bring them there, should they be needed.”
“Ok, I understand, but why are you talking to me about it?”
Michael snorted.
“Basically, we want to buy assault skimmers.”
OK, not so bad an idea. Assault skimmers would give us some badly needed mobility, as well as close air support. The problem though was that a standard assault skimmer was designed to be used with human infantry.
“Assault skimmers are not particularly suited for the Einherjar, aren’t they?”
Naveen shrugged.
“They are the best option available.”
“Does that mean you intend to acquire expensive vehicles, that are only partly suited for what we need it? Vehicles that will be obsolete in half a year at most?”
Michael snorted, while Naveen turned red.
“Uh… yes. But it isn’t so bad. It will take years for the next generation of assault skimmers to become common. We should be able to get a couple of years of use out of them.”
I shook my head.
“Why? How long did it take ABAS to design the Raphael? A couple of months? And that was with a couple of completely new technologies thrown in. So contact them and commission a new assault skimmer design suited for our purposes.”
“You are aware that that will be quite a bit more expensive than getting skimmers that are already designed, right?”
“Only initially. It probably will be the first assault skimmer with the new grav coils and a tractor beam. If we design it so that the passenger compartment is a single module that can be switched out for a bot module, a cargo module, a couple of standard cargo containers, or a ground vehicle, we get an exceptionally versatile system, that will keep for decades.
That should defray some of the additional cost. Then we will likely get a small cut for our part of the design work when, not if, ABAS sells them.”
Naveen shook his head.
“That will slow down delivery considerably.“
Michael interrupted us right then.
“How long will it take for ABAS to deliver any new assault skimmers?”
Naveen shrugged.
“Two, maybe three months. Why?”
“And if we work with them on the new design?”
“Three to four months I would guess. Most of the delay comes from being on a waiting list.”
“So… if we were to grease the wheels a bit, it would not make that much of a difference. And until we get them, we keep one of our freighters on station. As long as Her Highness accepts that this will be more expensive, I have no problem with it.”
I rolled my eyes.
“Tell me, in your capacity as CEO of Enki, do you think we need those assault skimmers?”
“Yes.”
“Is it preferable to have a purpose-built design that does exactly what we need it to do?”
“Yes. Where are you going with it?”
“Can we afford to get the purpose-built design?”
“Yes, of course. It will be a couple of billion, maybe three or four, but fuck, that are the profits of two to three days.”
“So, is there any reason why you brought it to me?”
“Well, you were adamant that our military is purely defensive for the time being.”
I shook my head.
“Oh please. An assault skimmer has an effective range of what? 500km? 750 if they are long-range? It isn’t as if you are planning on an assault carrier.”
Then I saw his expression. God dang it, he was seriously thinking about buying assault carriers.
I took a deep breath and tried to calm myself down before I continued, a bit strained:
“We are not considering buying assault carriers, right?”
When both of the men began to hem and haw, without saying anything, I snarled:
“Let me rephrase that, we are not considering buying assault carriers, period!”
The older Indian gentleman raised his eyebrows on my definite statement.
“Why are you so vehemently against assault carriers?”
“An assault carrier takes as much resources, money, and personnel as three or four destroyers. And in defense, it is worth about as much as one, maybe two destroyers.
Its flight bays are designed to bring a large number of assault skimmers to any location where they might be needed, but they compromise the protection and weapon placements.
Nonetheless, it can devastate any ground force it encounters, and most fixed defenses, with its heavy, slow-firing weapons.
It has the pure firepower of a heavy cruiser, maybe even a small battleship, even if it can’t use that firepower against other grav ships.
In other words, it has only one function. Attack. It is a tool to project power. Right now, if we get one, we will send the wrong message.
If you think we really need an assault carrier, you can get one as soon as we can build it for ourselves.”
Michael frowned.
“Wait, you are not completely against assault carriers on principle, but want us to build our own? Why? And why can’t we buy some?”
I chuckled mirthlessly.
“At the point when we can build one, we will have several slips to build destroyers and cruisers already. Probably half a dozen destroyers and a couple of cruisers finished and running.
We will most likely already be working on a battleship, and yes, I realize that we need one to counter the double-As and triple-As.
But at that point, we will be secure enough and have enough standing that an assault carrier will change nothing.”
Naveen folded his arms and used his right hand to rub his chin.
“But what if we need to use the Einherjar outside of the range of an assault skimmer?”
“What would you need to use them for outside of that range? Have we anything to defend not in NYC or L5? If we are invited somewhere, we will then be able to use the facilities there to extend our range. Not that I expect that to happen anytime soon.”
He nodded slowly.
“I understand, but I don’t like it. I think we need the ability to go on the offensive.”
I placed my face in my hands and growled.
“Why? Whom would we go out to attack? We have a strong, defended position here, but outside of it, we are minnows. We don’t even register as a blip on the radar. Anybody we would need an assault carrier against will have a navy. Even a few destroyers will turn your shiny new assault carrier into so much scrap.”
I shook my head, and continued with way less heat:
“No, right now, we can’t use an assault carrier, and we don’t need one. At this moment, those things are pure prestige objects.”
After a few moments, Naveen huffed and slumped a bit.
“Fine. You are right. I want one, but we don’t really need one. Now. But sooner or later we will need one, and I hope by then we have it.”
Michael placed a hand on his shoulder.
“She is right though. Right now, we are purely defensive. Impressively defensive from what I understand, but we have essentially no option for offense. So we should not make waves. And yes, I want a capital ship as well, but yeah, it would send the wrong message.”
“Now that that is cleared, where do I find those new recruits I had to come in to talk to?”
Yes, I was a bit aggravated. Not necessarily that I had to come into the HQ, though that played a part, but mostly because I had to call the two of them back from spending a few billion dollars on a ship that we did not need, and in reality would be harmful for our position.
Naveen snorted.
“Ah yes. Those. We managed to snag a team of cyber specialists, complete with the techies, social engineers, some secondary jacks, and a good frontman.
We want you to pull them in on Blumenthal. They will be our main investigation team for the matrix. Beside Warden that is naturally.”
I shook my head again.
“Fine. I will talk with them, but where are they?”
“12th floor, Room 1238.”
I sighed and nodded to Michael before I turned around and walked to the elevator.
I walked right past Maggie, who looked at me a bit bewildered, before I heard her ask, probably one of the men:
“Huh? What is Vivian doing here today?”
I heard Michael answer her:
“We have called her in to work with some of our matrix specialists. Also…”
The rest was cut off by the closing elevator doors.
On the 12th floor, the security HQ, I had no problems finding the room in question. It was one of the briefing rooms for our security forces.
After the vanguard of my guard detail opened the door, long gone were the days when I could open doors outside of my home by myself, and we walked into the room, I saw that there were around a dozen or so men of clearly south american descent, with a generous helping of African ancestry as well.
I estimated their ages ranging from the early 20s to around 30.
I walked towards one of the older of the men, who was clearly the leader of this little group.
“Good morning. I am Vivian DuClare, and I have been asked to read you in on our target.”
The leader, probably that Ramon Gutierrez whom Naveen had told me about, smiled broadly, and walked towards me.
“Ah, so we finally meet in person. Say, what do I call you? Vivian is probably out, but is it Ms. DuClare, Dr. Duclare, or Seraphim?”
I was a bit confused when he spoke to me in heavily accented English. Did this guy think he knew me?
“Uh… sorry, but are you Ramon Gutierrez? And what do you mean by finally meeting in person?”
He stopped short and then chuckled.
“Are you telling me that you’ve never looked us up?”
I cocked my head.
“Should I have had? Why?”
He rubbed over the back of his head in an embarassed gesture.
“Uh, that is a bit awkward. I honestly thought you had looked us all up when you had the chance. But no, you are too much of the boy scout to do that.”
I shrugged.
“That tells me nothing either. And it is Girl Scout. So, why don’t you tell me where you think I should recognize you from?”
Another man, a year or two younger than Ramon, walked up to him.
“Hey, stop playing the idiot, Ramon.”
Then he turned to me.
“We all met in the Abyss. And he apparently thinks that you should have been able to put the real names of all Abyss dwellers together with the codenames.”
“The Abyss? Wait a minute, an Abyss dweller?”
Something clicked in my mind, and I understood.
“Are you saying that you are Bletchley?”
The grin on Ramon’s face was back, and he answered:
“Not anymore. But yes, I was Bletchley. But, well Colossus and I made your idea a reality, and I retired. And the name Bletchley is a legacy name that stays with the Abyss.”
I frowned.
“So… C0W8OY Trinity is now Bletchley? Not good.”
Bletch… Ramon snorted.
“Nope. Technically the one we all know as Colossus is Bletchley. It is as I said, a legacy name, and it stays with #2 of the ranking list. But as the current #1 doesn’t claim the title, and the legacy name of Colossus, the old one keeps that name. But Trinity is ‘only’ #3. So he keeps his own name, and doesn’t get any control over the Abyss.”
Ok, that was a bit better.
“So… if you are retired, what made you come here? You should have more than enough money to live the rest of your life.”
I pulled out one of the chairs and sat down, followed by Ramon and the other men who had waited in the room. The ones that were not yet sitting that is.
And Ramon was clearly a bit embarrassed again.
“Well, that is your fault, you know?”
My answer was a simple lifted eyebrow, and he hastily continued.
“I would have been happy to just lie in the sun and sip cocktails, but my fiancée decided she didn’t want to wait another two years for children. So we packed up and moved into this cold, dreary city of yours. But what don’t you do for the love of your life, huh?”
So… it was the nanobot treatment for the Folly.
“And the rest?”
Ramon shrugged.
“Well, Enrique, my brother here, you know him as CZ and his wife decided they liked the idea and came along. That brought the rest of the team into play.
They are nowhere near as financially secure as I am, or as Enrique is, so they decided that they wanted to keep working for, and with me. So, here we are.”
“I assume you can vouch for every one of them?”
Ramon nodded.
“Yes, of course. I’ve worked with each of them for a few years.”
“Ok, then welcome to the team. Though honestly, I am not so sure what we will have you do. Our cybersecurity is handled by Warden.
But whatever, we will find things for you to do. Right now… we are working on a man named Isaac Blumenthal. He is an operative. We don’t know who he works for, or what their plan is, but we know that they don’t stop from using terrorism.”
I sent a mental command to the computer in the room and the holo-projector began showing a 3D model of the man, as well as what we knew about him.
“Right now, we have barely anything, as you see. We are right now trying to get access to his computer, but it is a binary, maybe even a trinary OS.
Dedicated com line, biometric scanner, the whole works. I will give you access to everything we have, though it is not much yet.”
Ramon frowned.
“Uh, what did he do?”
I sighed.
“Did you learn about the zombie hordes yesterday? That was his doing, or more like his organization's doing.”
That made not only Ramon frown.
“Zombie horde? But… why? Why would anybody use a fucking zombie horde?”
“We don’t know. Yet. That is our mission. We have to find that out. Along with who is behind Blumenthal, and what their goals are. And then we will make them understand that we are not amused about their methods.”
Ramon and Enrique nodded solemnly.
“Yeah, I can get behind that.”
I snorted.
“Well, the good news for you is that you don’t have to buy a Seraphim Mk. VI. Not that they are that expensive, mind you.”
