The Blade of Earth 9 (Patreon)

The person who opened the door was just as I expected … and yet surprising. 

She was a brunette with glasses, her posture slouched, unable to make eye contact, and wearing clothes at least three sizes larger. She was only lacking thick eyeglasses and dirty hair to look like a nerd from the shows I had been watching when I was a child. 

Yet, her aura was the complete opposite. It was an indescribable mixture of soft and sharp, the boundary shifting and shuffling, a confusing mess. Her aura felt like trying to decipher a complicated formation pattern. 

No wonder Sophie trusted her to handle her work. “You must be Lana,” I said. She nodded but didn’t say anything immediately. 

“P-phones,” she stammered after a lengthy silence, which didn’t surprise me, as Sophie had mentioned she had added a message as a part of the phone message. Interesting, but nothing particular. 

“As you wish, beautiful,” I said as I passed the phones, enjoying the way she blushed at the simple compliment. The moment she grabbed the phones, she darted away, leaving me to watch her as she moved. 

A chuckle escaped my mouth even as I closed the door. Ordinarily, I wouldn’t have been interested in someone as shy as her, but the contrast between her general attitude and her aura fascinated me. I followed her slowly, looking around the house, but saw nothing out of the ordinary. There was not even a computer. 

The reason revealed itself the moment I arrived at the basement, one that was filled with screens, cables, and blinking lights. I didn’t exactly know their value or capabilities, but considering phones were small enough to act as computers, I assumed enough gear to fill a large basement suggested serious firepower. 

And, I could also understand why there was nothing else in her apartment about computers. The basement entrance was some kind of metal trap door, but once it closed, the entrance was hidden completely. It was clear that her identity as a hacker was secret. 

However, I was less interested in the computers that filled the room, and more interested in watching her work. Not the work itself, as it was nothing more than a lot of black screens with flowing text, she typed furiously. Her shy expression was gone, replaced by pure, intense concentration. And, suddenly, her incredible yet confusingly well-defined aura made far more sense. 

This was her domain, and there was no place for shyness. 

She worked without saying anything, and I sat, enjoying her pretty face while I waited for her to finish, ignoring my desire to tease her, no matter how much I wanted to see if she would react differently while she was concentrating on her work. I would have done it if we were dealing with anything less important, but demonic cultivators unfortunately took priority. 

After a long, half an hour work, she stopped typing and stood up with a sigh. 

Only to gasp in shock. It looked like she didn’t even notice my presence while she had been working. “Is it done?” I asked. 

“N-not particularly, no,” she answered, her blush growing even as she avoided my gaze. 

“Really?” I said. “I expected it to be faster since the phones were already unlocked.” 

“T-there’s several layers of independent protection and encryption that don’t suddenly disappear when they unlock the phone, it’s not simple. Whoever designed the systems was very careful to keep their information hidden. We have to wait a while some of my programs rotate through the password fragments I managed to scrape. It takes time!” she answered, her voice suddenly more heated, reacting to a perceived insult to her work intensely. 

“Sorry, beautiful. I know next to nothing about computers. I can’t understand what’s easy and what’s hard,” I answered. 

“Oh, sorry,” she replied, the apology enough to suppress her anger, already pulling back. A pity. I liked her passion. 

“No problem. Maybe, once this mess is over, you might explain things over dinner. I know a place with excellent burgers.” Her blush grew even more at the invitation. She might be shy, but she was not stupid, and she understood that it was an implied date. Yet, she was too shy to even answer. I decided to change the subject. “Why don’t you tell me how you two met?” 

“It was three years ago when Sophie was still working for the FBI,” she said, happy to change the topic. “I have been … visiting databases that I wasn’t supposed to, leaving my hacker insignia just to prove that I was there. One day, I made a mistake and Sophie picked on it, tracking me in the real world.” 

“Interesting,” I said. “Then, what happened?” 

“She had been dealing with a complicated case back then,” Lana continued with a sigh. “Some kind of complicated money laundering scheme using cross-border digital art purchase, but the FBI analysts failed to crack their exact method,” she added, the disdain she had for the analysts coming across clearly despite her general shy attitude. “It was easy to wrap up.” 

“Then, what?” I asked. 

“She convinced me that helping her in some of trickier digital crimes was a better use of my time than hacking for fun,” she said. “Until…” 

“Until she had been kicked out of the FBI, and you decided to follow her,” I completed. She nodded. “It was brave of you, following her to the middle of nowhere, to help her discover a crime that the government is trying to cover up.” 

She snorted at the mention of the government, but only for her blush to grow when I looked at her questioningly. “They are a bunch of selfish, corrupt people that care about nothing but their projects. I care nothing about the government,” she explained, showing that her shyness wasn’t about her radical approach, but her simple reaction. 

Such an interesting bundle of conflicts, making me wonder just how different she might have been during the different parts of her life. Unfortunately, there was nothing I could do … even if I seduced her, we would barely have time for a fun quickie, and she was too interesting to be neglected like that. 

“Unfortunately, it looks like how the world works,” I said, letting silence fill the room for a moment. 

“I have a question,” she said. 

“Go ahead,” I said. 

“I have researched you, but for some reason, I couldn’t to find anything,” she said. “How did you manage to live off the grid like that?” 

“I have been living in a secret enclave since my childhood. I didn’t have much opportunity to walk around,” I said, which was true as far as Earth was concerned. 

“A big sacrifice… even for magic,” she said, trying to sound casual, but it was an attempt to probe me about my abilities. Not entirely shocking, as it was her system that allowed her to discover me. However, her lack of information was made obvious by the terms she used. 

It was the weakest attempt at subtle questioning I had ever seen, and I couldn’t help but answer her question. “Well, sometimes, I wonder the same thing,” I said honestly, but since I didn’t want to go deeper into that topic with someone I had just met, even if she was very interesting, I changed the topic. “Also, magic is not the correct term for it,” I said. 

“Really, what is it?” she replied, enthusiastic about my actual answer. 

“That …” I started, and her enthusiasm grew. “That’s something we can discuss during the dinner, maybe with some drinks,” I said, her enthusiasm being replaced with another blush, but she was unable to answer. 

I was planning to tease her more, but a beeping noise distracted her. “I managed to uncouple the GPS module,” she said, enthusiastic to turn her attention back to the problems she could understand. 

“A translation for someone that has no idea about how it works,” I said. 

“There’s a design problem in these phones. GPS module was supposed to erase the data, but it only erases the pointers without the proper rewrite procedures —” she started, but soon noticed that her explanation wasn’t any better. “I can check the locations he had visited during last week. I don’t have the matching time record, but we can see any location where he had spent significant time.” 

“Excellent work,” I said. 

“Do you want me to send it to you?” she said. 

“How? I don’t have a phone,” I said, which earned a shocked glance from her as I had just admitted that I was an alien. However, even as she reached for a drawer, I realized that, technically, I had spent more than half of my life away from my home planet. 

I couldn’t help but wonder whether that qualified me as an alien. 

“These are burner phones,” she said as she passed two phones to me, ones that looked much simpler than the others. Still, that didn’t fully explain it to me. “They are disposable ones,” she corrected. “Only I have the numbers. One for you, and one for Sophie, but only use them in emergencies. They are not completely secure.” 

I nodded. “Okay, now, why don’t you show me the map,” I said. 

“Are you sure? I can print it out,” she offered. 

“Don’t worry, I have a good memory,” I said as she turned, and I quickly memorized the details of the area where he had spent most time. A private house in the more affluent parts of the city, some kind of warehouse on the outskirts, and a certain location in the middle of the forest. “Interesting —” I started, but before I could complete my sentence, I felt a certain piece of paper warming in my pocket. 

Someone needed help.