8FOLD: Daylighters # 10, "Secrets and Snares"

[Tom Russell]

As humanity prepares to join the war in space, alien agents work with
fifth columnists to weaken the earth's defenses. They are opposed by a
decentralized network of superheroes and specialists, the DAYLIGHTERS,
whose efforts are guided by the sophisticated AI network MEDUSA. But
Medusa, and the Daylighters, have been compromised...

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              |___/     |___/  [8F-200] [PW-45]

      # 10 - SECRETS AND SNARES

------- STARRING ---------------------------

Seamus Lonnegan, SILVERFISH, age 28.
Enhanced reflexes aided by a low friction suit. A thief who has never
failed, and a supervillain who has never been caught.

------- MISSION: FORLORN HOPE --------------

Dan Washburn, STRIKEOUT, age 37.
Throws objects with great speed, force, and accuracy. Accountant.

Rosa Rojas, VIOLINISTA, age 20.
Sonic manipulation. Musical prodigy and concert violinist.

Matteo Ricci, VAMPIRO, age 24.
Supernatural strength, speed, and agility. Intermittently employed.

------- FEATURING --------------------------

Claire Belden, RAINSHADE, age 31.
Metamancer. A double agent concealing the existence of The Company,
responsible for FEVER's compromise of Medusa. Currently impersonating
Shimmer.

Cal Morgan, THE MIGHTY INCH, age 18.
Permanently miniaturized. High school dropout.

Cal's MEDUSA, age six months.
An instance of Medusa, cut off from the wider network, aware that her
sisters have been compromised.

Ghedi Dirie, ZIP, age 17.
Long-range teleporter and travel blogger.

Bethany Clayton, KNOCKOUT MOUSE, age 32.
Controls the density of her right hand. Geneticist.

--------------------------------------------

After a few weeks of low-key and super-boring electronic
eavesdropping, Cal and her Medusa finally get something from the bug
they put on FEVER's bug of the Medusa network.
   "Okay, Medusa, what do we got?"
   "Do you want the accurate version or the short version?"
   "Of course I want the short version," says Cal. "Short is kinda my
whole jam."
   "There are dead zones where my sisters can't operate," says Medusa.
"That's by design, as a security measure that we devised. A certain
frequency that stops us from communicating when we're in range."
   "What if bad guys get hold of it?"
   "There's an override built into each instance. But it can only be
triggered by a small group within the network."
   "Because you guys are all super-paranoid about turning back into
the Gorgon. So you want to have that frequency there as like a
doomsday plan, but you can't give the override access to the wider
network, because if they're the Gorgon, they're just gonna override
it."
   "Right," says Medusa. "It's the same principle as the subconscious
network. Unfortunately that's what's given FEVER their back door,
where they can muck with the subconscious code unseen."
   "Except by us, because we're super spies."
   "Yes," says Medusa. "Maybe I should start going by M." She's been
toying with the idea of changing her name to differentiate herself
from the wider network that she's no longer a part of.
   "Hmm. Now when I think of you I'm going to picture Dame Judi Dench."
   "Do you picture me?" says Medusa. "In your mind, do you think of me
as having a face or a body?"
   "Uh, sometimes? More a face than anything else, but it's never
really clear. It's like when I read a book and they don't describe the
character, but I have this vague shape in my head when they're
talking. Do you know what I mean?"
   "No," says Medusa. "When I read books, I just process the words and
the meaning behind them. I guess I'm not what you'd call a visual
thinker."
   "I hope I'm not making you feel weird."
   "Not at all," says Medusa. "Forgive the digression."
   "Oh, please," says Cal. "I'm just happy I'm not the one that went
off-topic this time. So, what about this override?"
   "FEVER just made a change to the subconscious code, that basically
turns on the override without it being on? On the conscious level,
there's no communication in the secure dead zones, but on the
subconscious level, without my sisters knowing about it, they're still
sending a GPS signal. And only the GPS. No audio or data collection."
   "So, they're not using it to spy on something they shouldn't," says
Cal. "Do we know it's the FEVER guys at Cradle who are doing it?
Because there are like legitimate reasons for Cradle to keep the GPS
running subconsciously, right? In case someone goes missing in one of
these dead zones, we know where to find them?"
   "That's a possibility," says Medusa. "And I'm certain if Cradle
Tech was confronted about the change, that's the answer they would
give."
   "And all we would have done was tipped off FEVER that we were onto
them," says Cal. "But if it is FEVER who did it and there's some
nefarious reason why they need GPS in dead zones, we're just sitting
here like doofuses letting them get away with it. This whole thing
sucks, man."
   "Our ability to gather intelligence is limited," says Medusa.
"Especially with me being cut off from the rest of the network. Is
there anyone you trust?"
   "You."
   "Besides me. I think we need to bring someone in on this, get more
eyes on the situation."
   "No. There's no one." Cal frowns. "I mean, I trust Kate, but that
ain't mutual. She's going to listen to me for two seconds before she
thinks I have a screw loose. Or."
   "Or?"
   "Or she thinks I'm being manipulated by a rogue Medusa."
   "Rogue might be a nice name."
   "Pretty sure that one's taken, sweetie," says Cal. "The problem is
I'm such a screw-up and I'm so isolated from the rest of them that no
one's gonna believe me, and the minute they hear about you, they're
gonna try to delete you. Nuh-uh. Not gonna risk it."
   "What if we told someone without us telling them? They can't
discredit the source if they don't know what it is. Don't even mention
FEVER; with partial information received anonymously they'd be more
likely to exercise caution."
   "This is why we're such a great team," says Cal. "You come up with
great ideas, and I'm adorable."

When he gets out of the shower, Silverfish finds a woman in his bed.
He doesn't recognize the face, but the choice of a green pantsuit
would give it away if the umbrella didn't.
   "Hello, Claire. You look different. Something with your hair?"
   "Something like that."
   "You got a job for me?"
   "Yes. Day after tomorrow."
   He drops the towel, moving confidently and soundlessly to his
dresser. "How much?"
   "You haven't heard what the job is yet."
   "Day after tomorrow me and my mates are going to the cinema," says
Silverfish. "Ken Loach retrospective. Hate to miss it. You'd better
make it worth it."
   "Two million Euros."
   "Alright," he says, turning around to face her, naked and dangling.
"You've got my attention."
   She rolls her eyes. "Here's the brief." It materializes in her hand
out of the air, and she immediately tosses it onto the bed. "The
target is a black site operated by the World Defense Treaty Supreme
Command Council. Building something, we don't know what, we don't even
know where." [1]
   "How's that?" says Silverfish. "Hard to do a job if I don't know
where it is. I'm good, but I ain't that good."
   "We will know the day after tomorrow," says Claire. "There's a
rotating squad of Daylighters who are providing what is assumed to be
redundant security. Even the Daylighters don't know where it is. The
only way in or out is through their teleporter. He doesn't know where
it is, either; they flew him in blindfolded the first time."
   "So, once you lot figure out where it is, I'm to go there, poke me
head around, and abscond with anything that looks valuable or
informative?"
   "That's the gist."
   "Who're my sparring partners?"
   "No heavy hitters," says Claire. "I'll see to it that they're
otherwise occupied. There's a pool of second-stringers that would be
called in as alternates. I've provided a list in the brief, though I
can't tell you which ones those will be."
   "I'll prep for all of them," says Silverfish, looking it over. "Am
I to treat them gentle-like?"
   "That's at your discretion," says Claire.
   What she doesn't have to say is that he's not to kill them or cause
permanent injury. That's not his style, never has been, never will be.
It's bad for business. The minute you put someone in the morgue or the
hospital, the capes come at you hard, and they keep coming until they
get you.
   A few years back, one of the heroes chasing after him slipped on a
rooftop and almost fell to his death. Silverfish saved him. That gave
the general community the impression that he was some sort of
gentleman supervillain, a worthy and chivalrous adversary for whom
they could have a grudging respect. It's a load of malarkey, but it
makes his job easier; they're more likely to treat him with kid
gloves, which means he's more likely to get away. Which he has, every
single time.
   "So this is the spacemen, yeah? Pulse wants to know what we're up to?"
   "Something like that."
   "What makes you think I'm going to take a job like this, betraying
the whole planet?"
   Claire shrugs indifferently. "Same reason anyone turns their coat. Money."
   "Money's nice," agrees Silverfish. "So nice, in fact, that I think
an extra million would certainly help soothe my conscience."
   "It's yours," says Claire. "The advance will be wired within the hour."

Two days later, Ghedi ports in with Violinista and a bit of tuna salad
in a plastic container. He hands it to Strikeout. "From your wife."
   "I know who it's from," says Dan. "I recognize the lid. I thought I
was going home? I've been here three days."
   "I am sorry, Daniel," says Ghedi. "We are very short-handed right
now. Bethany was hoping you could stay on an extra day."
   "And so she cleared it with Susan," says Dan, gesturing to the tuna
salad. "There's really no one else?"
   "No one with your experience," says Ghedi. "That's why Bethany
wanted you for this."
   Dan doesn't actually have more experience than Violinista, and as a
strictly part-time suburban superhero with a full-time job, he's
probably seen significantly less time in the field. But Bethany
doesn't trust Violinista to make the right calls. Last year in the
sewers of Buenos Aires, fighting the space wasps, she didn't perform
well under pressure. At least, that's what Loop told Bethany, and what
Bethany told Dan; it happened in a timeline that Loop had erased. Ever
since then, Bethany hasn't seen her as talent to be nurtured, but as a
liability to be managed.
   Dan thinks that's a bad call. For one thing, he's generally opposed
to dinging someone for something that, at least in this timeline,
never happened. For another, even if it did happen, he's more inclined
to be forgiving; it happens. You can't expect people to be perfect. He
tried to argue the point with Bethany, even pulling out the old Tommy
Lasorda quote about losing a third of your games, winning a third, and
it's the other third that counts. That didn't go over well; Bethany
said that the difference was that when we lose a "game", people get
killed.
   That's the thing about Bethany. Once she makes up her mind about
you, that's it. That worked out pretty well for Dan, as she
immediately saw him as someone who could be depended on. It's a raw
deal for Violinista; Rosa's a good kid who is stuck in the minors and
has no idea why. [2]

After Ghedi ports away, Dan escorts Rosa to the hub. "This is the
center of the complex," he explains. "To get from one place to
another, you have to cross through here. Controls traffic and access
to the underground floors."
   "What are we protecting, exactly?"
   "I don't know," says Dan. He has his hunches; he sees the people
passing through. Lot of science types, lot of military types,
occasionally a representative from Kyklokos. Easy enough to put two
and two together, but even then, he just has a vague idea that it's
something to do with the war in space.
   Dan introduces Rosa to Vampiro. Her eyes go wide: "Are you a vampire?"
   Vampiro sighs, exasperated.
   "I told you," says Dan, "you need a new name."
   "No one asks Darkhorse if she is the horse," he grouses.
   "Even if they don't think you're a vampire (he's not a vampire), it
still sounds like a villain name."
   "Do you turn into a bat?" says Rosa.
   "No," says Vampiro. "But I am strong, fast, like vampire. Also, the
women are drawn to me, find me irresistible. Dangerous. Like vampire."
He kisses her gloved hand, polite and restrained except for his wild,
devouring eyes.
   "Does that line usually work?" says Rosa, stifling a laugh.
   "No," says Vampiro, slinking back into his chair.
   Strikeout mixes his tuna salad with a plastic fork. "I'm just
saying, the Headsman actually tried to kill you because he thought you
were a vampire. There was a spell where you were only getting night
missions because they thought you couldn't go out into the sun."
   "But it is a cool name, yes?" Vampiro looks to Rosa; he already
knows what Dan's answer will be.
   "Eh," says Rosa with a shrug.
   "He is allergic to garlic, though," says Dan.
   "You are?"
   "I am," he says, nodding solemnly. "An Italian, allergic to garlic.
Imagine my shame."
   It's at that moment that an alarm goes off. Immediately Vampiro
brings up the feed for that sector. A costumed figure is hooking up a
computer to a databank.
   "Silverfish," says Dan.
   As if he can hear him, Silverfish looks up at the camera. He snaps
his fingers, and the camera goes black.

The moment that The Company got the location, they also got the
schematics. Silverfish immediately saw that the only way to the lower
floors was through the elevators in the hub, and correctly guessed
that was where the Daylighters would be concentrating their security.
   So his first task is to draw them away from the hub. Silverfish
identified the area that was the farthest distance from the hub before
deliberately tripping the alarm and allowing himself to be spotted by
the camera. Then he hurried toward the center of the complex, unseen.
   Strikeout and Vampiro rush by him without even a second glance.
Silverfish figures it will be another three minutes before they get to
the room with the databank, at which point his trap will keep them
occupied for another ten. That should be enough time to neutralize
whoever is left at the hub and scurry down to the lower floors and his
objective. Thirteen minutes should be more than enough time.
   He's surprised to find the hub more-or-less deserted; only a few
normies are there to oppose him, and that skirmish is brief and
unremarkable. He steps into the elevator a few minutes ahead of
schedule: a luxury.
   When the doors open a moment later, a few notes of Bach's Partita
no. 2 cracks one of his ribs. It's a bit of a shock; he can't remember
the last time one of his enemies ever touched him with anything.
   But he's not going to let the girl have an encore, nimbly dodging
each invisible string of notes that Violinista throws at him from
outside the lift. Just as Silverfish squirms his way out of the doors,
he hears the unmistakable and surprisingly identifiable sound of
someone several floors up ripping the elevator doors apart with their
bare hands. That would be Vampiro, much too early, and is soon
followed by the disconcerting sound of someone landing on the top of
the elevator. Which means that they didn't fall for his feint after
all, but rather tried one of their own, luring him into an ambush.
   "Clever," he says, tipping an imaginary hat.
   Another hero would stop and smirk, if only for the briefest of
moments, and that would be enough of a distraction for Silverfish to
take them out. To her credit, Violinista is too smart for that, and
doesn't let up, instead tossing a wild and cacophonous net made up of
snatches of melodies and motifs. She knows her stuff; probably a
professional musician.
   All that however is being projected at about chest-level, so it's
simple enough for him to drop to the floor. Before she can redirect
her sonic blasts to the ground, he tosses the silencer at her feet.
Any sound she makes now won't leave the two foot bubble around her
emitted by the device.
   She knows better than to take her eyes off of him, and instead
tries to kick the device away. That's where the adhesive coating comes
in handy. With the silencer stuck to her boot, she's helpless.
Silverfish moves in to knock her out.
   But then there's that sound again, the doors behind him being
pulled apart and crumpled like paper. Vampiro is there, and behind him
Strikeout.
   When he turns back to Violinista, she's pulling off her boot and
throwing it at him.
   "You're alright, lass." He catches the boot, then tosses it
casually over his shoulder.
   She's already making with the music again, but by this time he's
close enough to kick her in the knees. She drops to the ground and he
scurries down the corridor.
   Vampiro and Strikeout are hot on his heels, with Vampiro naturally
being the faster of the two - faster even than Silverfish himself.
Silverfish slows down, letting Vampiro catch him.
   But of course the moment Vampiro throws his big stupid arms around
him, Silverfish wiggles free, aided by his low-friction suit. Before
Vampiro can react, Silverfish slithers underneath his legs, emerging
behind him. Jamming two shock charges into the idiot's neck is enough
to knock him unconscious without posing any significant risk of
fatality.
   Before Vampiro hits the floor, Silverfish turns to face Strikeout,
lobbing a softball in his direction. Predictably, Strikeout's first
instinct is to catch it in his mitt, which triggers the burst of
blinding light. Everything will be bright and blurry for Strikeout for
the next half hour or so.
   Which leaves Violinista. She's doffed her other boot and is running
down the corridor, trying to close the gap between them. Still trying.
Good. He'd be disappointed if she wasn't.

God, he's fast. It's not long before Rosa loses sight of him. That's
okay, though; she's never relied on her sight. She can hear him, hear
the doors opening and closing, hear his footsteps, hear the air
brushing and squeaking along his suit. She follows the sounds.
   He thinks he's clever, this Silverfish; he knocks over a chair in
the east corridor before going west. She doesn't pay attention to such
obvious distractions. She follows the sounds.
   The sounds lead her through the blue doors, into the little room
that overlooks a much larger one, where they are building a spaceship.
   It's huge, easily three or four hundred meters long, and perhaps
fifty meters wide. She's surprised at how ugly and cobbled together it
looks; instead of one long smooth thing, it's made out of segments
bolted together. The seams look like they could be torn apart if the
enemy aimed properly.
   "Not much, is it?" says Silverfish. He's standing on the other side
of the little room, leaning with his arm against the glass. "Not much
at all. Not against the Pulse."
   "So, you're working for them, then?"
   He nods.
   "How can you do that?"
   "How can we fight them?" he says, staring at the ship. "They're
going to wipe us out, girl. They've got fleets. We've got this."
   "It's our first ship," Rosa guesses.
   "Our only ship," says Silverfish. "We only got the resources to
build the one. It's all in the files." He gestures with a shrug toward
a computer, then holds up a flash drive. "The ship has a name. They
call her Forlorn Hope. I gather from your accent that English isn't
your first language, so possibly the idiom is unfamiliar.
   "It's the group of poor soldiers you send off to lead the charge
with the deck stacked against them, knowing that almost all of them
are going to die. And that's the whole war in a nutshell, isn't it? We
all know we're going to lose. Deep down. World's only fighting because
it's all they got left."
   "That or turn traitor," says Rosa. "What, you think if you help
them that they're going to spare you?"
   "I doubt it," says Silverfish. "But let's say they wipe this ugly
world clean in three months. Might as well enjoy the time I have left.
Money buys a lot of enjoyment."
   "Probably a lot less enjoyable in a cell."
   "Probably," says Silverfish. "Is that what you want, to do this
little dance? What are you fighting for exactly? To protect people
from the governments that are lying to them, telling them it's going
to be okay? To protect this?" He waves at the ship.
   Rosa looks at it again. It's a mistake; by the time she turns back,
Silverfish is nearly on top of her, driving his knee into her gut. She
doubles over, and he grabs her by the arm before flinging her across
the room.
   She scrambles to her feet, taking a couple of wild pianissimo
potshots. One of them actually hits his shoulder - she hears the
subtle pop as it's dislocated - but before she's upright the door is
swinging closed behind him. She rushes out the door.
   She chases him, following the sounds, but he's faster than he was
before, or maybe she's slower. She's nowhere near him when she hears
him in the elevator shaft, slithering up the walls somehow. Soon, the
time comes that she can't hear him at all.
   She returns to the blue doors, to the little overlook room. She
puts a chair in front of the glass window, and stares at the ship,
this stupid pointless ship.
   That's where she is when Strikeout finds her.
   "How are your eyes?" she asks.
   "Better," he says.
   "Vampiro?"
   "Taking a nap. So, this is the thing, huh?"
   "Yes," she says. "This is the thing." And she tells him what
Silverfish had said about the ship. Then she apologizes.
   "What are you sorry for?"
   "I let him get away."
   "Not for lack of trying," says Strikeout. He looks at the ship,
forces a smile. "Sometimes, trying is all that matters."

An hour later, Bethany and Ghedi enter the room. "Ghedi will take you
home," she says to Rosa. "Dan, we need to talk."
   Once the two of them are alone, Dan lets loose a sigh. "I
understand how enormously I've screwed up here. I accept full
responsibility. Don't blame either of them, and especially not Rosa;
she kept after him even after me and Vampiro went down for the count.
Why are you grinning like that? He got away with a bunch of data, the
whole story."
   "It's alright," says Bethany. "He was supposed to get away.
Computer, end program."
   There's a shimmer of light coming through the window behind him,
and suddenly the ship dissolves into red strands of nothing, leaving
an empty room that's even smaller than the overlook.
   "Wait, what?"
   "The Pulse has been trying to get intelligence on our preparations
and battle plans for a good long while. Derek offered our services to
Supreme Command as extra security, but Supreme Command reasoned, I
think rightfully so, that we would draw a lot of attention where it
wasn't wanted, so that was nixed. But we might be able to divert
attention elsewhere. Here."
   "So, what's here?" says Dan.
   "Not a blessed thing," says Bethany. "But the minute word gets out
about a secret base being protected by the Daylighters, where the only
way in is through a teleporter who doesn't even know where he's
teleporting to, well, our enemies start putting a lot of time and
energy into finding out where that is. Which lets the actual war
effort proceed apace.
   "And," she continues, "should they actually find it and find a way
in, then they find the story we want them to hear. The hologram,
thousands of corroborating documents, humanoid robotic actors, all
courtesy of the Directors Guild of Anarchy, who are actually really
charming folks when they're not trying to murder or gaslight you." [3]
   "I'll keep that in mind. So, you couldn't have told me Silverfish
was coming?"
   "I didn't know it'd be Silverfish," says Bethany. "I expected them
to send someone a little more, uh, lethal."
   "Gee, thanks," says Dan.
   "That's why I needed you on call. Someone I could trust to see a
team through it. Which you did."
   "I got knocked out like a chump. So did Vampiro. Rosa's the one
that kept us in the game. She was MVP."
   Bethany doesn't look entirely convinced.
   "She reminds me of you," he says. "Tenacious."
   "Anyway," says Bethany, "the reason why I'm telling you this is
because I'm bringing you in."
   "Bringing me in," says Dan.
   "We didn't leak the location," says Bethany. "Someone working for
the Pulse did. A few weeks ago we gave Cradle Tech backdoor access to
the subconscious of the Medusa network so they could monitor it for
any security vulnerabilities. Someone within Cradle made an edit to
that subconscious, which would give them access to this location. The
fact that they made a play for it almost immediately after confirms
for me that the code was altered for this purpose."
   "That's bad," says Dan.
   "It gets worse," says Bethany. "One of the guys who was supposed to
be here today was Disrupter."
   "Doesn't ring a bell."
   "Big guy," says Bethany. "Emits a high-friction bubble, slows
everything in the bubble down."
   "That would've been helpful given Silverfish's low-friction suit."
   "Exactly," says Bethany. "Found him dead this morning. Carbon
monoxide. Could be an accident. Or it could be someone didn't want him
to be here when Silverfish showed up."
   "But that someone would have to know who was on the rotation," says
Dan. "One of us?"
   Bethany nods. "More than that, that someone would have to know we
had given Cradle that backdoor access. And there were only six people
in that room. One's me. Three others I trust with my life, no
questions asked." [4]
   "The other two?"
   "There's the new girl, Loop. But she almost killed herself saving
Dust Devil."
   "Pam's genuine," agrees Dan. "So who's left?"
   "Rainshade."
   Dan covers his face in his hands and quietly swears. "That's bad.
That's really bad."
   "Really, really bad," confirms Bethany. "She's got top clearances
in the Daylighters thanks to Derek. She runs security for Cradle.
She's the one that pushed us to give Cradle access to Medusa in the
first place. And no one has seen or heard from her for weeks. If it's
true, it's a disaster."
   "If?"
   "I don't have any real proof," says Bethany. "It's all built on a
couple of big suppositions. It makes sense, but maybe that's also the
problem."
   "I don't follow."
   "The Forlorn Hope is the story the Pulse expects to hear, so it's
the story we tell them," says Bethany, waving at the empty room. "No
one likes Rainshade. She doesn't have any friends. No one trusts her.
So maybe this is the story that we're expecting, the one that plays
into our prejudices. Maybe this is them trying to get us to turn
against her. Hides the real culprit, if there is one, and removes our
expert on the magic-stuff, maybe right before they hit us with some
kind of big magical attack."
   "Are the Pulse into magic?" says Dan.
   "Someone woke Venus up during the Last Story," says Bethany.
"Stands to reason it was them. Before we can act, we need to know for
sure if she's involved. And until then, we can't tell anyone. I've
only told you, and Kate Morgan. You're the only two people I trust
with this."
   "Okay," says Dan. "So, what do you need me to do?"
   "I got an anonymous tip about the Cradle stuff," says Bethany.
"Someone calling themselves Tiny Dancer. I have no idea who they are.
But their tip panned out, so I'm going to request a meeting. Maybe
they're on the up and up. Or maybe this is some kind of snare and I'm
the target."
   "So, you'd rather I walk into the trap for you," says Dan. "Swell."




COPYRIGHT (C) 2020 TOM RUSSELL.

Medusa created by Drew Nilium and Tom Russell.