Satyr Play 02 Pt. 01

He smiled happily. "Yes, they've welcomed me with open arms. They're good people," he said fondly.

She nodded. She'd heard reports from Marisa and agreed Henry had found himself a good circle of friends. "Are you still friends with the member of the Hidden Races Council, Ms. Beaumont?"

"Yes, we're still getting used to each other's forms. Michelle's equally squeamish. My arachnophobia isn't as bad as it used to be, but she's struggling a little with my having horns and hooves. She's really nice, though."

"Does she talk shop with you?" Camila asked.

"No, we agreed to keep our work and home life completely separate. I think it's healthier that way," he said with a smile, which faded as he saw the disappointment on her face. "What?"

"I was just hoping we might have an inside line on Council business where you were involved," she admitted. She saw the uncomfortable look on Henry's face and raised her hands. "It's fine. I won't ask you to do anything that will make you uncomfortable. You've struck up a friendship with her, and I won't jeopardize that."

Henry smiled in relief. "Thank you!"

She nodded and looked back at her screen, obviously ready to get back to work. "Remember what Roy said, but see if you can find a way to make them lose interest in us."

"Will do."

He paused as he contemplated telling her about his ordeal with the policeman's death, but with the NSA poking about, he thought he'd keep the NYPD issue to himself.

Henry stepped out of her office, smiled at Felix on his way by, and headed for his own office.

As he walked into the waiting room, Marisa looked up at him with a smile.

"Good morning, Mr. Gable!" she said with a wide smile, dazzling him in the process. While her glamor hid her Succubus attributes, it did very little to mute her intense beauty. Even the non-prescription glasses she'd taken to hiding behind couldn't diminish it.

He blinked to get his mind back online and returned her smile. "Good morning, Marisa!"

Her expression turned curious. "What's up with Mr. Duncan?"

Henry reached up and rubbed the back of his neck as he winced with embarrassment. "I might have attracted the attention of the NSA with our new firewall."

Lovely blue eyes widened in surprise, then worry.

"It's okay though. I can... well, I'm not sure what I can do yet, but I'll work on that today."

"Should I reschedule your eleven AM meeting with the Marketing Team?" she asked.

"Huh? No, that's fine." He said as he made his way to his office. He noticed a new door handle. "What's this?"

"Orders of Mr. Duncan. Biometric readers are replacing the access card readers in the building. They're starting with all the doors for the executive officers. The biometrics of the owners are the handle's keys. Just grip the handle for it to identify you," she explained.

His eyebrows rose as he gripped the handle and heard the latch pop open. "When did he take my biometrics?" Henry asked.

"Have you visited the Security Department recently?" Marisa asked.

"This morn—" he stopped as he recalled the new handle on the Security Office door. "Sonuva—"

Marisa's giggle snuffed out his annoyance immediately as it was such a sweet sound.

He shook his head and looked back at her. He admired her long, smooth neck, then realized he could see it because her hair was teased up onto her head. Elegant in a retro way.

"Oh! Sorry for not noticing before. Your hair looks lovely like that!" he said with a smile.

She nodded to him demurely. "Thank you, kind sir."

Her dress also looked rather fancy, if from a bygone era. "Are you going out after work?" he asked.

She smiled. "Very good, Henry! You're getting better at this! Yes, Siobhan and I are checking out a new club after dinner. Its theme is the Cold War espionage years. You dress up as either a Russian or an American spy. I chose American, and Siobhan is dressing as a Russian."

"Sounds like a fun place!" he said.

"Would you like to join us? I know a place where we could get you a wonderful Russian General's uniform!" she said with a delighted smile.

He grinned back at her. "Thanks, no. I'm not much of a dancer." His mind flashed back to Nate and his gang of friends heading to the club. He sighed. "Have a good time though!"

"Oh, we will!" she said, which left little doubt in his mind that she was hunting tonight.

He turned and let himself into his office before she could see the conflicted look on his face. He understood that, as a Succubus, she needed to feed, and sex with humans was her primary source of energy.

The first night they met, they discovered she could also feed on his energy. Recently, though, she seemed to be avoiding him. He could almost feel her resistance if that made any sense. Perhaps she recalled the close call of her overdose? He felt bad about that, so he was willing to give her space and try to be understanding about her reluctance to look to him for recharging. That sounded better than feeding. He knew he was being stupid, feeling jealous of the people she would be hunting tonight. To her, they were just food.

Camila had no such reservations about using him for a meal as he'd discovered when he returned from Ireland. He twitched as he'd come to do when his mind returned to his visit to the Emerald Isle. He forced his anxiety down and dropped himself in his chair.

Cold War or not, he had a spy of his own to uncover.

Chapter 9

Kent was fried. He'd spent the entire weekend at the office using every trick he had to crack open the fucking firewall at VRL. Several times, he'd experienced a moment of absolute joy when it seemed he'd peeled back the last defense wall only to find he was facing another. He'd been awake for over fifty hours, tossing back energy drinks to keep his brain riding the edge of maximum sharpness, but now he was struggling. He had to make a report to the Director tomorrow, and he had nothing to show for his efforts.

Having exhausted every legal and semi-legal authorized method, he had one more weapon at his disposal, but he couldn't use it from his desk at work. His home system had better access to what he needed to do. Besides, the team he would call upon to assist him couldn't see he was connecting to them from the NSA. He signed out from his work terminal and left his office.

"Kent! Where ya goin—shit! You don't look so good, buddy," Graham said as he leaned away from his pungent friend.

Looking at Graham blankly for a few seconds, recognition finally flared in his eyes. "Graham! Sorry. Had a long weekend here. Working on a secret project. I need to head home. I'll see you tomorrow."

He wobbled away, and Graham watched him leave with a worried look.

Kent had a few narrow misses on the drive home and drank another energy drink in a vain attempt to keep his edge.

When he got inside his home, he started up his system. Then he realized he'd left the firewall signature files on his work PC. For the next ten minutes, Kent had a screaming fit. Breathing deeply, he decided he couldn't afford the time to drive back to get the files, so Kent used the backdoor access code he'd added to the NSA firewall to hack into his office PC. Blinking with exhaustion, he realized he was using the wrong password and had to cycle through three attempts to get in. Finally, he transferred the files to his home PC.

He hammered the received files with his virus scanners and several other tools to ensure they weren't hiding anything inside. Then he copied them to a USB stick to manually transfer them to his dark web PC, which was on a physically separate network. He used this connection to route its communication through a series of proxy servers. Once in place, he began preparing to bring the might of the darkest team of hackers on the web to bear on VRL. If his efforts were like using dynamite to blow a hole in the VRL firewall, the dark team's were like a thermonuclear bomb. He giggled at that visual. He'd worked hard, gaining their trust.

Now, they'd do the hard work for him.

-=-

Lise-Anne Hoek was Minister of Security for the Hidden Races Council. It was one of the highest positions one could have in the secretive organization. She'd worked hard to get where she was and was proud of her work over her long tenure. Humanity remained blissfully unaware of their magic-based neighbors outside of the fanciful stories the Council themselves spun and supported and a few nutcases whose credibility they destroyed.

Today, she heard evidence that her work might be coming undone by some unknown force. This made her very, very worried. As one of the Fairy folk, this wasn't a state of mind she could tolerate for long. They were people of action. If something worried you, you did something about it!

She was standing before a seventeenth-floor window overlooking the reservoir in Central Park as the sun set. In her Human disguise, she could be taken for a woman in her sixties, dressed in a tailored business suit. In reality, she physically resembled a six-inch tall young girl who hovered on tiny wings. This wasn't something that would go unnoticed, even in New York.

She appreciated the view, but there was business to attend to. The argument raging at her back was getting out of control.

"ENOUGH!" she barked crisply, and silence returned as she turned to look at the group.

A short, barrel-chested man with a braided red beard glared at his blonde counterpart seated across from him on a facing couch. The redhead was Rand von Deussel, Council Investigator in charge of the Eastern United States. He was one of the dwarven race and a damn good investigator, normally able to keep his temper. When faced with his blond cousin Thane del Neev, Investigator for Western Europe, tempers always flared. The blonde's face was also red with suppressed anger.

Michelle Beaumont was also seated on the couch beside Rand and looked uncomfortable in the tense environment. As one of the Arachnid race, her people were typically calm and reserved and avoided displays of aggression. She was the Council's historian, a quiet and private woman, and had already informed them that the anomalies reported matched nothing on record.

Thane wasn't happy with her response as he'd insisted the man who saw sound, in his opinion, had clearly become one of the dTesh, an ancient enemy the Hidden Races had hunted to extinction millennia ago. Rand upped the ante by calling his cousin's response reactionary and emotional. That was her cue to weigh in.

"The man in question is dead. Whether or not he'd become a dTesh is a moot point. We don't have access to his body, and even if we did, as Michelle indicated, we have no certified documentation on dTesh anatomy to identify it. Their extinction occurred before the council made such records. We won't get an answer to that," she explained calmly.

The fifth member of their meeting returned from taking a call. Tall and skeletally thin, the man had pale skin and almost no body hair. His eyes were pale and widely spaced on either side of a nose too large for his face. By Human standards, his disguise was ugly. Lise-Anne knew his true form was that of a very large raven. The spirit animal race was extremely rare and intensely private. Only Ra'Anek's intense need to collect data kept him on the Council as its Minister of Risk Assessment. He vetted all information regarding threats of exposure and anomalous events. He worked closely with Lise-Anne, and today, the look on his long face was grim.

"What's happened?" Lise-Anne asked.

"Plane crash. A small commuter struck one of those new pseudo-clouds. Eleven passengers, three crew. No survivors. All Humans. Nothing left of the pseudo-cloud. They're denser than real clouds, but when struck by a plane at speed, they become highly volatile," he said in his quiet monotone. "Something keeps them aloft, and something enables their ability to generate massive electrical charges. When a large mass strikes them with great force, the result is a significantly concussive explosion. Ripped the plane in two, front to back."

Rand scowled. "Why didn't they avoid it? A plane that size would have radar. They must have realized there was something ahead with mass! I can understand a small two or four-seater without this equipment, but not this. Do the clouds absorb radar?"

"No, they show up on the radar," Lise-Anne said, as she'd been following the reports of this new phenomenon.

Both Rand and Thane had baffled expressions.

"Human error," Ra'Anek said, and the two investigators scowled.

"You said there's no evidence of what they struck? What about the black box and flight recorders?" Lise-Anne asked.

"They'll be under high-security lockdown. Getting access will be exceptionally difficult and would likely draw suspicion," Rand said. "Our best course of action is generating a noisy and messy public outcry against the pilot and the airline. Lawsuits and social media floggings. We could also rattle the reactionary groups with the terrorism angle. It probably looks like damage from a bomb."

Lise-Anne nodded and made a note to get her team assigned to this. She looked up at the group. "What about the source? Has anyone been able to determine what is triggering these occurrences? We've had two incursions? How should we be describing them?"

Rand looked at Lise-Anne, and she caught the expression and his brief glance at Ms. Beaumont.

She directed her attention to the Arachnid. "Actually, before we continue, Michelle, I think we've probably used enough of your time, and I don't believe we'll have any more questions for you if you want to head off to work."

"Oh! Okay. I'll go then. Goodnight," the woman said quietly and nodded to the others. She rose to her feet and quickly left the apartment.

They felt the privacy field release and snap back into place as the door closed.

Rand sat forward on his chair. "The earliest sighting we've tracked occurred approximately three weeks after the Dragon linked the Satyr to the Fae's globe-spanning spell."

"Is there a direct connection between him and these invaders?" Lise-Anne asked.

Rand looked to Ra'Anek. "We'd need a wielder to test the magic of one of them to see if it is the same Wild Magic found in the Satyr." The tall man looked to Lise-Anne in question.

She looked at the investigator. "Let's hypothesize. Let's say the incursions are directly linked to Mr. Gable, as he's called now. What would you propose to do about it?"

Rand scowled. He knew the Fae would protect the Satyr as their lives now depended on him. "We need more information. If the invaders are from the same realm of Wild Magic, we need to know if he's attracting them somehow or creating the breaches. If he has nothing to do with their appearance, we look elsewhere. If he is responsible, we go to the Fae and request their help containing him."

Thane, for once in agreement with his cousin, nodded. "For the good of all of the Hidden Races, the Fae included."

-=-

A soft chime brought the old soldier to a fully alert state instantly. He glanced at his cell, positioned next to the bed. He swung his legs out from under the sheets and sat up to answer on the third ring.

"Colonel Devlin."

He listened to the quiet voice on the other end of the line and memorized his orders. He frowned as it wasn't the typical mission he received.

He didn't bother saying goodbye when the voice stopped talking but hung up and went to the washroom to shower. He took a quick one in cold water and dried himself quickly. It was the early morning hours in Frankfurt, Germany, but his official visit was over, and he'd been ordered to return to the States to take up a new challenge.

His driver was ready for him when he left the front door of the small one-bedroom bungalow the Army rented for him. He lived alone and didn't need much space as he maintained a minimalist lifestyle.

He rode in silence to the air base and boarded the waiting transport plane. Once he strapped in, he settled back to complete his night's sleep. His mind went back to the quiet voice and his open-ended orders. "Unknown threat to be contained and/or eliminated. Fully sanctioned." The unknown target was atypical. Usually, he was aimed at an identified target and made it go away quickly and quietly.

He allowed himself a small smile. He was being given free rein to run the mission his way. The Intelligence agency that collected the information for his mission had only been able to determine the existence of a potentially credible threat to society. It was escalating faster than they could manage. They needed it identified and eliminated quickly and quietly. He could do that.

He'd done exactly that on his last mission and got the job done, but a weak-minded excuse of a soldier leaked word of his methods. So he'd been transferred to the base in Germany while the situation at home cooled. Important people in Washington backed him, so he bided his time and waited for the next call.

He was good at being patient. He was also good at taking decisive action when others hesitated.

This time, he was hunting the cause of a downed small commercial aircraft. A cause linked to an anomaly he needed to get ahead of and snuff out. All he had were some reports of clouds that didn't behave like clouds. Clouds that were making it dangerous to fly the skies over his country. Someone had either fabricated a new technology to take down aircraft or, if the report was accurate, it was biological, proving someone was fucking with Mother Nature. He would find the responsible ones and end them before the sheep panicked and questioned their leaders.

He'd do it because that's what his country needed from him.

-=-

When she got home, Sigrid was surprised that Meixiu wasn't by the front door. She chastised herself for her expectation as Meixiu didn't have to be there, but Sigrid had grown accustomed to the evening greetings. It had become their little ritual.

She walked into her home, smelled home cooking, and heard an odd sound. She walked to the kitchen and saw Meixiu listening to her shortwave radio with rapt attention. The petite woman squeaked in surprise as the tall blonde entered the room.

"Oh! You startled me!" Meixiu gasped.

"What are you listening to that has you so absorbed?" Sigrid asked curiously.

The young woman's face lit up with her excitement. "Something amazing has happened in China! I think it was also close to where I was born!"

Sigrid grinned at her enthusiasm. "What?"

"A mighty storm struck a mountaintop near a village, and when the villagers went up to the top, they found a man made of glass!"

"A sculpture?" Sigrid suggested.

"No! It moves! It is a man, but he's made of glass. Wonderfully beautiful glass!"

Sigrid frowned in worry, and Meixiu's smile dropped away. "What?"

"Either the local Human government will suppress this, or the Hidden Race Council will," Sigrid said gently.

"But it's too late! They are talking about him on the radio! Listen!" Meixiu said, pointing to the shortwave.

They listened, but the voices were now silent. There was only static. Meixiu glanced at Sigrid in surprise.

"Overt signs of magical activity are suppressed by any means possible. This protects us all. You understand this, yes?" Sigrid asked.

Meixiu looked sad. "I understand... but I would have liked to have met the glass man."

Sigrid opened her arms, and Meixiu moved into her embrace.

"Me too," she sighed.

Chapter 10

Henry found himself once more staring at his computer screen at work as the sun slipped below the horizon.

He'd gotten a break early in the day when the net he'd placed over the NSA firewall detected an intruder. He was running VRL's intrusion detection algorithms on a third-party network. This would not be detectable to them, outside of a slight lag, as it reviewed incoming traffic. He had the intruder's feed captured and analyzed and found password attempt entries. He set those aside for later use. He logged the identity of the owner of the workstation, and when the intruder pulled some files, Henry detected them as his signature files. He appended a flag byte on each signature as they transferred. Inert on their own, if the files were added to data packets sent through the Internet, they activated other capabilities. Most important of these was the breadcrumb trail the data packets left.