The Daily Grind - Chapter 127 (Patreon)

Two chapters after this before book two is going to wrap up, I think.  After that, I'll be taking a bit of a break from TDG (though I *will* be coming back to it, for sure this time).  I'd like to take a moment to ask everyone to let me know how they feel I should handle the gulf between patreon chapters, and public chapters, since you all are the people paying my bills at the moment.

Thanks for reading.  You're fantastic.

Enjoy

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“They’re back?”  Were the first words James said as he stepped through the door and into the Lair.  He’d made frankly impossible time back; impossible, that is, if you discounted the free eight minutes everyone got when driving here.  “What’s going on?  Is everyone okay?”  The near panic in his voice was unmistakable.

Alanna held up a hand at waist level, turning away from the small group of knights and toward James with a calm look on her face, eyes narrowed and wary, but not on high alert.  He’d already started to relax before she got a chance to speak.  Which was probably the point, if he thought about it.  “No one’s dead.  Take a deep breath.”

James did so.  He also took the time to give a nod of greeting to the other people in the room, and to notice that there were more people moving around in the dining area, in the back room, and around the elevator.  There were a lot more people here than when he’d left.  More camracondas around the windows and doors, too; lounging around, but obviously on a form of guard duty.

He clearly hadn’t been the only person warned about Status Quo.  And whether it was official or not, the Order of Endless Rooms had moved to a form of increased alert level.  He wouldn’t call it ‘orange’ yet, but they were certainly at a ‘reddish yellow’.

“Okay.”  James willed his heart to stop pounding quite so loudly.  “What do we have?”

“Alright.  You know we’ve been scouting the area, yes?”  Anesh asked.  He was standing next to Reed, current head of Research, the kid wearing his perpetual nervous look.  When James didn’t interrupt Anesh, but did cock his head to the side, his boyfriend continued.  “With the different types of glasses we’ve duplicated, we can have a knight just take a walk through part of town, or people watch for a while, and essentially scan for points of interest.”

“Ah, that kind of scouting.  Yes.”  James remembered the idea from a long time ago.

Dave cut to the chase, talking past Daniel and Sarah.  “We have glasses that show affiliation.  Neil spotted someone today that had the actual Status Quo group.  What the hell was it? Agency A-01?”

“That sounds like a fanfiction website.”  James quipped, the wiseass part of his brain hijacking his mouth while the rest of him tried to form actual thoughts.  “No, wait.  That’s not the worst thing ever.  We left a lot of them alive, and dispersed them.  It’s natural we’d… oh, wait, no.”

Alanna clicked her tongue.  “If the organization were actually gone, they wouldn’t have an affiliation.”  She confirmed.  “Now, what I’m actually worried about is who they were talking *to*.”

“A member of Nike’s board of directors?”  James asked, and got puzzled looks from the others.  “I know you all listened to the recording of my chat with the director.  Nike has a dungeon somewhere, and Status Quo tacitly allowed it.  I’m making an educated guess.  And now I’m stress rambling.  Alanna, please stop me and give us an actual answer.”

“Organized crime, you… god, you’d be adorable if you weren’t so bad at timing.”  She shook her head.  “Red Mafia, specifically.  Who yes, were originally Russian.  But are surprisingly ethnically diverse these days.”

“How do you…” Daniel started to ask.

James ignored him.  “Okay.  So, they still think of themselves as the protectors of humanity, or whatever.  And they’re talking to criminals.  Resupplying, maybe?”  He glanced at Alanna with raised eyebrows.

“Unlikely.”  She said.  “They don’t share well.  And while I’m sure Status Quo has bank accounts somewhere that I wish we’d thought to try to wrest control of away from them, it’s not like a local mob is going to have dungeontech for sale.  I assume?”

“Is anyone going to ask how she knows that?”  Daniel interrupted.

“No.”  James said.  “So, why, then?”

“Hiring.”  Harvey said, walking up to their circle and running a hand through his hair.  He’d been growing it out to cover up the skulljack port; a lot of survivors had.  If James had asked, everyone would have denied that it was a mimicry of his own style, which was ironic because he wore his own skulljack with at least a small amount of pride in the mix.  “They’re hiring muscle.”   Harvey restated.

“Is anyone gonna ask how *he* knows *that*?”  Daniel sighed.  “No?”

“Actually, yes.  Because I don’t know.  What’s our source?”  Alanna inclined her chin at Harvey.

The other man spoke with a rasp in his normally deep voice, like he hadn’t slept in a while, or had just spent hours on the phone.  “Old brother of mine from college. Nice guy, bad choice in friends.  I asked if they had any work for me, you know?  Said they would soon, some big thing coming up.  Needed the extra staff for it.”

“You know people in the mob?”  James asked.

“You know people who perform ameture demolition for political reasons.  Everything’s got texture.”  Harvey replied dryly.

“Alright, alright.”  Anesh waved his hands.  “So, they’re still around, despite our pretty blatant threat.  And they’re hiring people for something big.  What?”

“Best guess?  They found another dungeon.”  Reed said.

James frowned, not letting the relief in quite yet.  “Not us?”  He asked.  “That doesn’t sound likely.”

Everyone started talking at once.  Everyone had a different opinion, a different take on it.  Through the noise, James caught different snippets of people’s words as they spoke, either to each other or to whoever might be listening.  There was a new dungeon, the Order was the target, Status Quo was  they were trying to rebuild their bank accounts, they were always in league with the underworld, they *were* the underworld, this was some grand conspiracy, this was a few people just looking for revenge.

James looked around the room, and noticed other members of the order, and a fair few of the camracondas, hanging around the edges of their group and watching them.  He spotted Momo and her new friend hanging behind the counter, leaning on what used to be a cash register slot as one of them watched the argument and the other one looked at the girl next to her with an expression that said “Them?  Those are the people in charge here?”

He snorted air through his nose and gave a half shake of his head.

“Guys.”  James only said the word once, and everyone quieted down and looked at him.  “Quiet, for a second.”

James hadn’t even actually done a census of the Order.  He knew faces and names, had a general idea of the strength they could bring to bear on any given problem, whether it was combat related or not.  But he didn’t know the numbers.  Still.  There were five humans, a stapler, a drone, and one infomorph in the foundational group; roughly fifty humans rescued from the Office, and a couple other Life picked up along the way, with about a third of those people sticking around in a permanent capacity and another third available to help out with random non-life-threatening stuff; five people James had hired with actual interviews and stuff like a real job, minus one tragic loss; and there were just over thirty camracondas they’d saved as well, again, minus one loss; and one prisoner in the basement.  No, wait.  Two prisoners, since Graham was there too, assuming he counted.  Quick head math, then, put their ranks at somewhere around fifty people.

And currently, roughly half those people were within earshot, listening to a decent chunk of their leadership have some kind of communication breakdown as they loudly argued over who and what were or were not planning to come murder everyone in the building.

“Okay, everyone just chill for a second.”  James tried to regain some semblance of professionalism.  “What information, *concrete* information, do we actually have?”

Anesh tapped out the points on his fingers.  “Status Quo still exists as an organization, they have contact with a local gang… um... “

“Is that it?”  James cocked an eyebrow.  “I’m sure we can do better.  Also it’s basically certain that they had contact with local crime rings before now.  From what we understand of the files we swiped from them - files that are *very obviously incomplete yes thank you Alanna* - they didn’t really give two shits about morality or legality, when they were pursuing their goal of stability.”  Harvey and Dave nodded as he spoke, and while Anesh looked a little skeptical, James wasn’t quite done and addressed his partner personally.  “I’m not saying we ignore this.  I’m saying that we need more information.  So.  How do we *get it*?  Ideas.  Go.”

“Infiltrate their ranks?”  Alanna instantly suggested.  “If they lost their HQ, but they’re still operating, then they might not actually have the same level of counterintel that they did before.  They missed the existence of the entire Order beyond the three of us,” she jerked a thumb toward Anesh and James, “so maybe we have someone approach them as a potential recruit?”

“Or a potential patron.”  Harvey rubbed at the side of his neck.  “We’ve got resources now.  We can throw around a little power, make a good show of it.”

“You want us to… try to take control of Status Quo?”  James almost laughed.  Then he thought about it, as everyone eyed him, and decided that *yes*, he *would* laugh.  It wasn’t a huge laugh, but certainly at the level of a chuckle.  “I mean, there’s not a chance they’d accept that, right?”

“Do we know?”  Dave asked, looking his feet before glancing up.  “We can do the first idea, then the second later.  Like you said, we don’t know anything.”  Dave didn’t physically shrug, because he was the kind of person that talked like he was monologuing into a stationary microphone in an empty room, but his voice had a kind of casual dismissal in it.  “I think we should just kidnap one of them.”

A chorus of “Woah!”s and “What?”s greeted his suggestion, the circle of people taking a step back from the young man who’d jumped straight to the end of what he saw as the logical path.

“I mean, Randall *did* have a whole thing about taking prisoners.”  James said.

Alanna rolled her eyes at him.  “James, not you too!”

“No, no.  Kidnapping seems like a very bad idea.”  James conceded, and everyone starting to relax just a fraction before he continued talking and added, “It’s really more taking prisoner than kidnapping, since we’re functionally at war.”

“No!”  Alanna and Anesh echoed together.

James, for once, kept a serious face at their reaction.  “No, listen.  I’m not kidding this time.  I’m not saying we torture or execute anyone.  But we need actionable intelligence, and these people are *our enemy*.  This isn’t a case where we’d be targeting random civilians.  This is a case where trained killers with an agenda of removing the people they see as ‘problems’ to society have decided that they’d happily shoot us all in the head.  If they aren’t using our still-breathing bodies for ritualistic blood magic.  Like, we’re not talking about grabbing someone we *suspect* of being evil.  We’ve got pretty hard evidence of their crimes.”

“I think technically you mean, maybe ethics violations, not crimes?  Though I guess they did crimes too.”  Reed mused.  James ignored him.  This wasn’t even close to the time for anyone to use the phrase ‘well technically’.

“Okay.  So, we’ve got infiltration, and kidnapping.  Any other ideas.”  Daniel looked around at the faces that were, in theory, his companions.

James glanced over at where Momo was still watching them with a smirk on her face.  “Have we considered blatant use of magic?”  He asked.  “I can check my pockets, I’m sure I’ve got some kinda bullshit we can use.”

“I have an inventory of different perception enhancers.”  Reed offered.  “We can do IR, UV, X-ray, and FM radio for vision.  I’ve also got sunglasses that show you people’s insecurities and fears, headphones that tell you where people had lunch, and an audio file that plays an episode of car talk about whoever’s name you change the file name to.”

There was a pause.  James cleared his throat to break the silence.  “I… was honestly going to go see if Momo had come up with some horrible ritual thing.  I wasn’t expecting that response.  Holy shit, where did we get all that?”

“We basically take anything that a human can wear that isn’t nailed down from the Office.”  Daniel quipped.  “And things camracondas can wear, too, I guess.”  He eyed one of the door watchers, currently wearing a snake-adapted vest.  “Sorry, did you say ‘see in FM’ or am I going crazier?”

“It’s a strange experience.”  Reed confirmed.  “Crazier?”

“Dude.”

“Okay, yeah.”

“Not to interrupt this,” James cut in, “but we can absolutely use at least two of those as passive, non-damaging interrogation tools, if we had a prisoner.  Anyone else have not-so-dumb magic?”

“I’ll go check the database.”  Reed said, excusing himself and heading for the elevator.

As it turned out, not everyone in the Order was as comfortable with casual anarchy as James was.  And they *did* keep a list of who had what blues slotted at a given time, along with stuff like where dungeontech was assigned or what orange jobs were in effect.  They just weren’t *stupid* about the list.

There was, Status Quo aside, an almost constant sense that they didn’t belong somehow.  The Order stood just slightly outside the lines of society; they didn’t specifically ‘do the crime’, but they did absolutely break laws with casual disregard.  And yeah, the FBI had given them tacit approval, *assuming* anyone could actually acknowledge they existed.  And yes, they were largely seen as heroes by the people who knew of them.  Or at least, as blundering idiots with good intentions, if you’d found El and asked her.  But there was that nagging thought that at some point, someone *might* try to start a fight with them.

So the really important stuff, like the list of powers, wasn’t on a google spreadsheet they could access on their phones.  It was on exactly one terminal in the basement, and it required two passwords from two separate people to get into, and it was also wired to explode.  Not violently, but, you know, a little bit.  Enough.

Reed would be back in a bit, James assumed.

“I’m gonna go see about getting the locks changed on one of the rooms in the basement.”  Harvey said, sighing.  “Also finding something to drink.”

“There’s a ton of stuff in the kitchen.”  James told him on reflex.

“Yeah, I meant whisky.”  The older man said, shaking his head as he went off to assemble a prison cell.

James took a deep breath and tried not to sigh again.  “Well, that’s going well.”  He commented.  “Momo!  We need a scrying ritual!”  He yelled over at the front counter, noticing for the first time just how much random stuff had accumulated on it.  It was like a coffee table, only not next to a couch, and he’d be annoyed by that every time he went toward the back room from now until the end of time.  “Goddamn, I said ‘magic’, and I just kind of assumed everyone knew I meant scrying ritual.”  He mumbled.

“Not everyone is a huge nerd.”  Alanna told him, her mouth a straight line as she answered.

“Hm.”  James bit his lip.  That was a shame, he thought, but didn’t waste time saying it out loud.  “Okay, while Momo tries to work up the courage to ask if I was serious or not, do we have any other ideas?”

“What about just classic spycraft?”  Daniel said.  “No one suggested just finding one of them, with the magic glasses obviously, and then tailing them.  Planting a couple bugs.  That sorta thing.  Has no one here seen James Bond?”

“I actually haven’t?”  James said.  “I know it’s ironic, especially with my name.  But I just never got around to it.  Is it good?”

Anes stepped between them, holding up his arms. “No, no.  We’re not doing this now.  Daniel, with me.  Limit-Of-Hope, you too!”  He called one of the camracondas by the door.  “We’re on that.  James, coordinate.  Alanna, make sure Momo doesn’t blow anything up.”  He turned and started walking with enough purpose that everyone just kind of fell in behind him.

“Well alright then.”  James said.

“He’s sexy when he gets annoyed at us and starts making plans.”  Alanna said, only slightly leaning down toward James and speaking loudly enough that basically everyone could hear anyway.

“Do we have a plan then?”  James said, actually talking softly, because there *were* still people around listening in.  Or at least watching.

“Try lots of things, communicate with each other, make sure we don’t step on toes.  Also, we should see if JP can figure out where their money is coming from.”  Alanna said the second part a little louder.  “Is he back yet?”

“He and Secret… Randall too, I guess… get back in…”  James pulled out his phone and checked the time.  “Huh.  Their flight should have landed already.  I’m gonna check if something impossibly horrible happened that shut down all air travel.”  His fingers started flicking at the screen as looked up the latest news.

Alanna crossed her arms, leaning back against the wall.  “Really?”  She asked, a little sarcastically.

“It’s twenty twenty, love.”  James said sadly.  “Can you think of a better year for airplanes to stop working?”  He didn’t look up from his phone, scrolling through the headlines for anything that looked suspicious.  “The chamber of commerce is suing the president.  That sounds bad, and like something JP might have caused somehow, if he were more of the ‘financial collateral damage’ type.  Um… apparently the pentagon has a UFO unit, and they’re declassifying some of it?  That’s rad.”

“Arrivals.”  One of the camracondas by the window spoke up.

“I mean, I don’t think UFOs are actually alien… oh!”  James cut himself off as the arrivals in question walked through the door.  “Secret!  You’re back!”

JP carelessly tossed the satchel he was holding against the row of hooks holding coats and bags by the door.  “I’m here too, asshole.”  He grumbled, looking like he hadn’t slept in the last few days.

“Yes, hello to you too.”  James said offhandedly as Secret, *also* somehow looking exhausted, even without a permanent physical body, lazily detached from around JP and coiled up around James’ left side.

It was Alanna who came to his rescue.  “How was New York?”  She asked.

“Well, I learned two things.  One, skills don’t mean quite as much of an advantage when you’re up against people who are actual criminal masterminds.  Two, it’s so much fucking worse when those people have magic.”  JP cracked his knuckles like he was getting ready for a fistfight.  “Randall put me with a white collar crime crew, told me to watch out for anything unusual, and then I just kind of lounged around being in the way for a couple days.  Learned a lot about how to get away with securities fraud, though!”  He looked cheerful about that.  Alanna and James did not.  “Anyway,” JP waved away their glares, “so, funny story…”

“I don’t believe you.”  James sniped.

“*Funny story*.”  JP started again.  “So, it turns out, there are a lot of people who actually believe in wizard bullshit.  And I’m not talking about people like you-two-years-ago who was just waiting for your portal to a fantasy world so you could get eaten by wolves.”  He pointed at James, who gave a defensive ‘Hey!’ but didn’t actually argue the point.  “I mean people who legit have all these weird ideas about petitioning higher powers, and rituals to call power to them, and shit like that.”

“I mean…”  James started to say something.

Without really hesitating, Alanna reached over and put him in a headlock.  “If you start talking about religion, I will not be letting you go.”  She said calmly.  “JP, please continue with your funny story.”

“*Hurk*”  James agreed.

Ignoring what was going on, though impressed with how Secret twisted himself to avoid getting caught in the wrestling move, JP kept talking.  “So, there’s this group called the Skull and Bones.  They’re comically famous among secret societies, and I think for a lot of the people, it’s an excuse to get together at three AM and drink the really expensive wine.  But it turns out, when your membership is drawn from the upper crust of Yale, you end up with a lot of people in a lot of high profile positions.  And now that you’ve got friends with money… well, you can make more money.  More power.  That kinda thing.  And *some of them* actually do believe in and perform some pretty fucking weird ritual magic.”

“Does it work?”  Alanna asked, loosening her grip on James, but not fully releasing him; turning it more into an enthusiastic hug than an arm bar.

“Like our dungeontech?  No.”  JP shook his head.  “I don’t think it’s dungeon related at all, actually.  But here’s the fucking thing.  Six months ago, they did a summoning ritual, to call up a ‘being of gold and silver’.  *And it fucking worked*.”

James blinked.  “I’m sorry, what?  I mean, I knew that was where this was going, but how?”

“Do you remember,” JP asked slowly, “telling us about your duel to the death with Frank?  How he was selling people to Karen-no-not-our-Karen?”

“Yeah, of course.”  James said, pulling away from Alanna and straightening up before leaning on her arm anyway.  “He had… oh fuck, no way.  They summoned the infomorph?”

“What Is Owed To Me.”  Alanna whispered the name.

JP nodded.  “Right on the money.  Literally.  Do you have *any idea* how much damage a cult that now fanatically believes in their own magic can do to the markets, when they actually have that magic, and would really like to own all the money?  All of it.  At once.”

“Is this gonna be about why the stock market decided to walk off a cliff a couple months ago?”  James asked.

“Yes.”  Was the simple answer.

“Well shit.  Did you deal with it?”

“I brought you back a bag of money.  Of course I… oh, right.”  JP turned stiffly and knelt down to pick up the bag he’d tossed on the floor.  He moved like he was covered in bruises; a style of body language James was really getting familiar with these days.  Cracking the clasp open, JP turned the satchel toward them and pulled back the flap, showing off mostly neatly stacked bundles of hundred dollar bills.  “I dealt with it.”

James cleared his throat, trying to think of how to politely phrase the next part.  “Did you… get in a fight?”  He asked

“Repeatedly.”  JP said.  “I actually got shot a couple times.  Did you know the FBI has these really cool vests that can stop bullets?”

“Bulletproof vests.”

“Yeah, those.”  JP grinned.  “It worked out okay.  The infomorph is going to be provisionally working with the one member of the investigation team who actually got what was going on.  Her name’s Tiffany DeKay, here’s her contact info, I know you’ll want to hire her.”  JP rolled his eyes like he’d predicted James’ every move already.  Which, well, James did want to at least talk to the woman.  “Anyway, the cash is a bonus because Randall and the other feds have this weird blind spot for strange stuff, so I’m now I think one of the more successful thieves in US history.  Our actual payment goes into the business account in a week.”

“Holy shit, dude, you can’t just steal from the government.”  James choked on the words.

JP gave an open mouthed grin, mixed with a look of sarcastic puzzlement.  “Why not?  Don’t you plan on replacing the government anyway?  Besides, I stole this from people who were using it to bribe the government to let them continue committing labor law violations.  I am literally Robin Hooding today.  You may now applaud.”

There was a moment, when presented with someone who actually brazenly followed through on some of the ideas and opinions that James held, that his conviction was actually tested.  Yes, he did plan on replacing the government.  Yes, this money came from people who clearly didn’t deserve it.  But something about how fucking *smug* JP seemed made it feel… wrong.  Not evil.  Just like he kind of wanted to hit JP.  But only once.  And then they should use that money for something useful.

After all, honestly, the redistribution of wealth into a more appropriate flow structure where money and power accumulated in stagnate bottlenecks wasn’t going to happen if they all just sat around asking nicely and waiting for the people that lived in those bottlenecks to please maybe release their stranglehold on society.  Accusing his friend of doing the right thing, or at least something that was a step in that direction, for maybe not the most noble reasons, seemed kinda mean.

So what James actually settled on saying was: “You’re thinking of Ivanhoe.  Robin Hood was about a guy reclaiming a noble title.”

“Seriously?  No.”  JP absolutely believed him, but wasn’t prepared to just roll over on this one.  Everyone knew Robin Hood.

“Seriously.  It’s one of those things where there’s actually, like, four different stories, and then modern storytellers slammed a bunch of them together and changed the names around.”  James said sadly.  “Also Robin Hood is easier to say than Ivanhoe.  It’s one word, even though it sounds like two.”

JP groaned as he stood back up.  “You really can’t help but ruin fun, can you?”

“You get to keep the money!”  James protested, incredulously throwing his arms up.  “I’m not even mad!  You’re right on all counts, and good job!  But it’s fucking not Robin Hood!”

“This is the weirdest fight.”  Alanna sighed.  “I’m going to go tell Momo you want a scrying ritual.”  She sighed, leaning down to give her shorter boyfriend a brief kiss before walking off.

JP rose back to his feet, finally stretching out, and looked around at the Lair.  “Scrying ritual, eh?  I mean, objectively, it might work without dungeon stuff, now that we know summonings can do a thing.  Oh, I have a copy of *that* ritual, too, just in case you want to know.”

“I do.”

“So, why’s it so busy here today?  The parking lot is packed.  Randall has to park down the street, which is kinda hilarious.  But also aren’t we supposed to be socially distancing?”

“First of all, everyone in the Order is way more safe from viral infection than the general population.  And not just on average because half of us are snakes.”  James pointed out.  “But also, yes.  We’ve been trying to keep this place empty.  But we’re moving toward action, because Status Quo is back.”

“*Lead with that next time you enormous asshole*!”  JP yelled at him, causing a few of the people who’d stuck around the front room to look over in surprise.  The crowd had lessened as the group had divided up, but some people had news to present to James, or their own ideas for intelligence action.  And those people now chuckled as they watched their paladin leader get chewed out for trying to be friendly and not leading with the important information.

Which is why when Randall walked out of the evening sunset and through the door, standard issue FBI black jacket rumpled from apparently a complete lack of dry cleaning in New York, his first question was. “What’s going on here?”

The situation was explained.  Randall nodded politely twice, before he wordlessly turned, walked into the small front office that had been granted to him after they’d moved James via dimensional bridge to a highrise office in LA, and shut the door behind himself.

Perhaps he was unaware that the door was not soundproofed, because everyone could hear his drawn out bellow of frustration.

A minute later, the door opened again, and he walked out, straightening his tie as every nearby member of the order, including the camracondas, gave him raised eyebrows.  Which was impressive, considering most camracondas didn’t have eyebrows, and the one that did had it painted on specially.

“Ahem.  James, may I speak to you briefly?”  The fed asked in a quiet voice.

“Oh my god that was hilarious.”  JP looked like he was a kid on christmas, biting the insides of his cheeks as he wore a massive grin.  “You literally just soaked up irritation after irritation for *days*, and *this* is what gets you over the edge?  Hah!”

“I have some time, sure.”  James said,  “Did you have fun in New York?”  He asked, turning to walk back toward the small office.

Randall didn’t mince words as he followed, moving around the folding table of snacks still left over from the support group earlier today.  “No.”  He said.  “And you’re not cleared to know why.  Now.  As your official liaison, and someone who is tasked with investigating the domestic terrorist group OA-1…”

“*That* was their name.”  James snapped his fingers.

“Focus.  You’ve become aware of their resurgence?”

“Maybe.  We ran across one agent of theirs.  Maybe.  We’re looking into it.  Actually, you could maybe help with that.”  James paused at the front counter, and glared down at where someone had left a coffee cup sitting on it.  A *full* cup, too, he noted with annoyance.  He took a sip from someone else’s latte, and decided it was his now, by right of cleaning off the counter.  “How exactly do you spy on people?”  He asked Randall.

The older federal agent sighed deeply, turning in his doorway to address the leader of the organization that was *supposedly* a valuable asset.  “We don’t ‘spy on people’, James.  Even a good intelligence gathering operation mostly relies on informants and contacts in the local area.  Building a rapport is more important than… spying, as you say.”

“So, no getting a group of neophyte deckers to compromise the security of the city’s traffic camera network and mass scan faces for organizational affiliation?”  James asked.  “Because we might be doing that right now.”

“Please stop doing that.”  Randall said, rubbing at the pallor around his eyes.  “Yes, it is important to evaluate your opposition, especially if they are an imminent threat.  Yes, stakeouts and tracking devices are useful.  But violating the constitutional rights of citizens isn’t an option.”

James held up one finger off the latte he was now holding.  “Point of order.”  He said.  “I’m not the government.  So it’s just invasion of privacy, for me.  And I think that the FBI backed facial recognition software from private companies anyway?  So you’ve gotta know there’s a distinction, even if only legally.”  He took another sip of the drink before setting it back on the counter, not wanting to be *too* mean to whoever’s coffee he’d been stealing.  “And they’re probably not an ‘imminent’ threat.  Odds are good they’re trying to recover, and maybe have eyes on a new dungeon.  I don’t think they’re going to attack us *now*.  Not when they had much better opportunities before.”

“Never assume your enemy knows everything.”  Randall told him.  “There’s any number of reasons for them to choose now, over then.”

“But we aren’t under attack now.”  James said.  “So we have at least some time…”

“Hold.”  Secret said.  He’d been reshaping himself into his ethereal self while he was here, circulating a bit smoother around James’ arm and shoulder, but now he froze.  “Something is wrong.”

James and Randall both tensed up.  “What?”  James asked, the word quiet on his lips.

“I don’t… know.”

“Arrivals.”  One of the camracondas watching the window called loudly across the room.  “Several of them!  Weapons!”  The digital words were as loud as their speaker’s volume could get them.

James’ eyes widened as he realized his mistake.  “Oh no.”  He said, reaching into his coat for his gun as Randall met his eyes with a similarly nervous gaze.

Then the explosions started.