A subtle agency omnibus, p.29
A Subtle Agency Omnibus, page 29
part #1 of The Metaframe War Series
Anton looked up, wiping his face with his hand and offered, “Thanks, I’m Anton.”
She nodded. “I know. I’m Juliette Mirovar.”
Anton looked at her more closely. “Are you his wife?”
“Yes,” she replied with a warm smile. “We make quite a team.”
Anton undid his combat webbing and pulled off his top without disturbing Li, who continued to rest her head in his lap. He grimaced as he pulled his shoulder clear of his clothes, dropping them to the side.
There was a nasty gash on his right shoulder. Juliette opened a black case and pulled out a pre-filled syringe.
Anton frowned and asked, “What’s that?”
“Painkiller. We can do this without it if you would like.”
“No, that’s okay, go ahead.”
Juliette put a LED headlamp on her head and with its light shining on Anton’s shoulder she used the syringe to inject Anton several times around the wound site. She counted ten seconds and then rapidly set to work stitching the edges of the cut back together with black thread. Two minutes later she completed the task by tying off the thread and applying an antiseptic herbal salve.
She smiled at Anton, moving to sit opposite him.
“That was quick and painless, you’re a bit of a miracle worker.”
“I’ve done battlefront tours with Médecins Sans Frontières, do you know about them?”
“Yes, Doctors without borders.”
“So now you know a little something about me. Let’s have a look at your foot.”
Anton lifted his right foot up, placing it on the seat opposite. He’d not checked it before, but now that he did, it looked a mess. Something had gone through the top of his combat boot.
“I didn’t really feel anything. I think it may have been a steel ball from a claymore mine.”
“Well, we’ll soon find out.”
Juliette undid the straps of his boot, gently peeling it away from his foot. She cut away the sock with a pair of scissors, revealing a raw puncture wound that’d penetrated the instep of his foot and exited just behind the ball of his foot. She picked up the syringe, applying more of the painkiller around the wound entry and exit sites.
“You could have some foreign material in the wound, we will have to make sure it’s clean.”
Li sat up, staring at Juliette as she pushed a sterilized probe through the hole in Anton’s foot.
“Does it hurt Anton?” Li asked.
“I can just feel it - like pressure.”
“Our medications are very effective, and now that you can Ramp, your physiology is changing. Your capacity to heal will be accelerated, nowhere near as fast as a vampire, but much faster than a regular human. Now that you have completed your mastery of the Ramp, your body has completed the physical transformation, you will heal in a day what would normally take ten.”
Li shook her head. “Anton is still mastering the Ramp, he only started six weeks ago.”
Juliette shook her head, momentarily perplexed. “I’m sorry - what did you say?”
“Six weeks, my father used the pressure point technique for switching on the Ramp capacity of Anton’s body.”
Juliette paused for a moment, frowning at Anton, and then her face relaxed into a broad smile. “Well, you’re a very lucky young man, it is rare for anyone to survive the process, which is why it is very rarely used. But still, you were holding your own against Crane’s praetorians when we arrived, you must have mastered the Ramp.”
Li shook her head again and explained, “No he hasn’t, his speed fluctuates, but sometimes he is very fast.”
“You’ve never mentioned this before,” Anton noted.
“Instability is typical of a student, but you must have been consistently operating at a mature top speed to be able to survive against vampires, especially skilled and experienced fighters like praetorians,” Juliette declared. She picked up her needle and thread, and started sewing the wounds in Anton’s foot. She pursed her lips in thought and then observed, “It is highly unusual to be so fast with only six weeks for the body to transform, you should be only about halfway there. Perhaps you have a talent.”
Peter leaned over from where he was steering the RHIB and remarked, “Don’t tell him he’s got talent. He’s just survived a fight with half a dozen vampires and the Witch Queen herself, he’ll get a big head.”
Francis sat down next to his wife and offered, “Stay with us, fight with us, and if you do well, I will sponsor you at the next Order Conclave.”
Anton glanced at Li, she stared back at him with a look on her face that said, ‘don’t say no.’ He looked within his own heart, feeling a resonance as he looked into the faces of Francis and Juliette Mirovar.
These people are honest and good.
“Thank you,” Anton replied with a nod. “I will join your team.”
Francis put out his hand, and Anton shook it. Francis had a firm, powerful handshake.
Anton let go, the RHIB slowed, pulling into a pier. A nondescript van waited there. Two men stood next to it. They wore black overalls and balaclavas to cover their faces.
“Order helpers,” Juliette explained softly to Anton and Li.
“We’re here,” Peter stated, leaping onto the pier and lashing the RHIB to a bollard with a stout rope.
Everyone got out of the RHIB, with Anton carrying Gang’s body in his arms, they moved over to the van. The two order helpers gave Francis the keys to the van, and got into the RHIB, driving it away from the pier and back out onto the river.
Francis and Juliette got into the front of the van. Anton got in the back with the rest of the team, laying Gang’s body gently to the floor of the van. In moments, the van was on its way.
“Where are we going?” Anton asked.
“To a safe house,” Peter replied.
Anton suddenly felt a wave of fatigue overtake him. He realized just how tired he was as he fitted a seat belt, put his head back and closed his eyes. As he dozed, a thought kept recurring to him.
How can anywhere be safe when the vampires are in charge of the world.
The van sped off on its way and Anton drifted into fitful sleep.
* * *
The Raven sat in the back of the van, studying Anton Slayne and Li Wu.
They’d recognized Anton immediately for who he was. They’d been extensively briefed as a child by their Red Empire instructors on the key figures of the Order of Thoth and the Vampire Dominion. Anton’s striking resemblance to his grandfather had given his identity away. The Raven reflected upon these new members of the team. Who is this Anton Slayne? The grandson of an outcast with no place in the Order, and Li Wu, someone who has hidden away from the fight for years, and yet they both survived the praetorians and it would seem - Chloe Armitage herself. What difference can they make to my mission?
The Raven sat with the other team members in the back of the dimly lit van. The van cruised along route I-95 past Salem, toward New Hampshire, Portsmouth and the state of Maine. They held a smartphone, the screen was dark as if the phone was off. The Raven had taught themself how to operate the phone with the screen dark through memory and touch alone. The phone was the same as the rest of the quantum encrypted smartphones that the Order team members all carried, except for one thing - it hosted a set of Red Empire applications written by a deeply hidden cell of the Red Empire operating out of the city of San Francisco.
The Vampire Dominion and their Shadowstone lackeys have no awareness of the presence of the Red Empire on this continent. Now to test the trojan inserted into Francis Mirovar’s phone during the chaos on the dock. The Raven had been waiting months for a chance to access Francis Mirovar’s smartphone, seizing the opportunity the moment it had arisen.
The Raven’s fingers ran lightly over the dark surface of the smartphone, activating a specialized Red Empire application. The software ran for three seconds, in that time, it compromised Francis Mirovar’s smartphone. In another two seconds, it decrypted the contents, filtered the accounts and delivered the quantum signature of Ramin Kain’s smartphone to the Raven’s smartphone. The Raven attached the contact details of the Head of the Order of Thoth to an encrypted message and sent it to the smartphone of Shabbah al Ahmar’s secret ally. Questions burned within their mind. Who is Shabbah al Ahmar’s other operative? Who is his ally? The Raven didn’t know. The Raven wasn’t allowed to know.
With another critical step in the mission accomplished, the Raven put the smartphone away in a waist pouch and rested with their eyes closed.
The Raven had found the years of hiding within the Order difficult. Inserted as a child and only partially trained, it had been a risk for the Red Empire that the Raven would not be accepted, or given their young age would in time transfer their loyalty to the Order.
It’d been decided by Shabbah al Ahmar himself that the Raven had all the right pre-requisites to fulfill the mission and become a highly placed agent of the Red Empire within the Order. Steps had been taken, a background identity constructed, a fake family assembled, a plausible and believable story created and the Raven had been dangled as bait - and taken by the Order.
From the day of their arrival, the Raven had excelled at blending into force leader Francis Mirovar’s team. They’d grown to adulthood within the team, absorbing all the Order had to teach them, blending the Order’s training with the intensive early instruction provided by Shabbah al Ahmar and the best instructors of the Red Empire.
Shabbah al Ahmar expected the Raven to rise to become the Head of the Order, and from that position, to subvert the operation of the Order to his will.
The Red Empire know me as Al Ghurab, the Raven, and one day, perhaps one day soon, I will bring the Order to its knees before the rulership of Shabbah al Ahmar and together, the true children of the way of the Ramp will conquer the Vampire Dominion.
It was a noble cause, which fueled a passionate fire within the Raven’s heart. Our cause is both right and just, we will prevail over our enemies.
Interlude One
Port-au-Prince, Haiti, December 24th, 1857, 20:25
The scent of aniseed laced rum filled the air as drunken revelers spilled out of the port tavern. The foul odors of sweaty, unwashed bodies clashed with the salt tang of the ocean and fought battles with the reek of bales of goatskins and mahogany stacked in piles along the docks of Port-au-Prince. The lush warmth of the night fed the ambiance of celebration as children carrying oil lamps sang carols in the street, and people sang, danced, drank and feasted.
Pools of light from taverns, shops and warehouses illuminated the packed earth of the street, and the people moved through the soft lights and dim shadows as they mingled, shouted in semi-delirium and loved wildly.
The people of Port-au-Prince celebrated Christmas Eve. Above them, an entirely different ceremony was well advanced in the top floor suite of the Ivory Moon hotel. The rooms had been cleared of furniture the week before, the bare floorboards lay exposed, and thick black curtains draped the windows.
Jean Philippe Allemande, Voodoo Sorcerer, and his student sat opposite each other within the confines of a magic circle. The circle was three yards across and drawn in fresh human blood. Both men were stripped to the waist, wearing simple dark cloth trousers. They were wet with perspiration, the student’s pale skin, long limbs, and lean musculature were covered in a fine sheen that glowed like gold in the candlelight. Jean Philippe’s mahogany skin, burnished in the candlelight, dripped sweat onto the floorboards where it soaked into the dry wood. The air was thick with the scent of black candles wrought from the fat of human cadavers. Flat copper bowls of slowly congealing blood lay at the eight cardinal points around the bloody diagram on the floor.
The student had arrived in the winter months of 1846, a bargain had been struck, power would be swapped for immortality. In the following years, the student had visited, time and time again. To participate in training, the mind, body, and soul to confront the Divine Engine of Thoth and draw from it a tiny fraction of its true power.
The student’s agents had delivered Jean Philippe to the Americas, the Far East, Turkey, Europe, and England, where he’d aided the student in the acquisition and binding of a circle of five servants of great power. Tonight’s service would be the last one that he would provide, and it would bring him a step closer to the fulfillment of his greatest desire.
Jean Phillipe’s craving for the Key of Ahknaton threatened to break his deep concentration. The wondrous artifact that granted full access to the Divine Engine was often in his thoughts. It was why he sought immortality, a gift the student bore within his blood. With immortality, he would have the time to find the Key of Ahknaton, and with the Key in hand, he could remake the world in his own image.
Jean Philippe had explained the ceremony to his student. The protections were necessary to defend themselves from the raw power of the Divine Engine. It was only with strict adherence to the rules that the precautions would work. The slightest misstep would bring utter catastrophe. The student had insisted that despite the risks, they should proceed, and finally, the time had come to complete the greatest sorcery that Jean Philippe had ever attempted. From bitter experience, he understood the boundaries of what could be asked of the Divine Engine. He’d brushed against those limits once before and had spent many months cowering in madness before a semblance of sanity had returned.
Jean Phillipe watched his student intently. He speculated on the power the student had asked for. He wondered what might happen if the powers of the Divine Engine were ever pitted against each other. Would an irresistible force meet an immovable object? He admitted to himself that he no longer had the courage to attempt such a thing. He thought it best to keep his concerns to himself lest the student leave without making payment.
The student was ready - residing in a place of perfect stillness. Jean Philippe tightened his concentration to a single point. The air shimmered within the confines of the circle, like summer heat rising off sunbaked stones. An awesome presence filled the room. The candles dimmed, the shadows thickened, and a glimmering rainbow flickered in the center of the magic circle. The rainbow solidified, resolving into a swirling mass of multi-colored lights the size of a melon hovering two feet off the floor.
He uttered a single phrase, “Grant the power of foresight.”
Gleaming dust motes halted in their flight before Jean Philippe’s eyes and time itself seemed to pause, then the Divine Engine disappeared.
Intense disappointment cut him like a knife. The promise of limitless power remained tantalizingly out of reach. Without the Key of Ahknaton, all he could practice were petite sorceries, and he could never satisfy his lust to consummate a union with the Divine Engine and become one with the gods.
He glanced at his student. The student’s face was lit with a terrible wonder, his eyes focusing on empty space a yard in front of him.
“Mr. Crane, what do you see?”
“The many future paths before me.”
“That is a potent gift.”
“Agreed.”
“I have delivered what I promised, five binding curses and an unlimited sorcerous power for you.”
“You shall have your reward.”
The student’s mouth trembled. He smiled hungrily, fangs gleaming wetly in the candle light. He lunged forward, sinking his razor-sharp teeth into Jean Philippe’s throat.
With his blood rushing out of his body, Jean Philippe’s gaze lit upon the lone spectator to the ceremony. A young woman, her body warm and luxurious, struggling frantically against her bindings, her eyes wide above the cloth gag filling her mouth. Her companion lay dead on the floor, his blood used to draw the magic circle and fill the copper bowls. She would be his first true meal, the fruit of the earth, destined to satisfy his immortal needs.
A succulent fruit, the first of many to be savored on his island home.
Chapter Eight
Progress Report - The Day Guard Program Phase V
Report#: 134
Date: June 11th
Summary begins:
The development of the Day Guard serum has now entered its final stage. The success rate is now more than 50% (50.4%), with enhanced effects proving persistent beyond thirty days without degradation. We conclude that administration of the serum will produce permanent enhancements without side effects within 3 hours in one of every two healthy, adult subjects.
Current averaged measured results across the twelve successful test subjects are as follows,
● Strength increases by 304%
● Motor speed increases by 315%
● Agility increases by 294%
● Endurance increases by 515%
● Reflex speed increases by 324%
● Pain tolerance increases by 312%
● Healing rate increases by 524%
● Motor skill increases by 378%
These results represent a doubling in activation of the System Zero epigenetic factors when compared with the Phase IV subjects, yet still fall about 50% short of the theoretical maximums.
The symptoms of serum failure continue to manifest as berserk rage, followed by progeria, and catatonic depression with onset 24 to 48 hours after the administration of the serum with inevitably fatal results within two days of the onset of the symptoms.
All test subjects have been terminated using the TEF-4 neurotoxin. Final wrap up of this program has commenced and can be expected to be completed within two weeks. All technical details for the design and production of the Day Guard serum, the TEF-4 neurotoxin, and their associated delivery systems have been committed to secured data vaults on the Panopticon cloud.
The primary active ingredient of the Day Guard serum is derived from the Ophiocordyceps diabolicus fungus. A substantial quantity of the fungus has been harvested from the Amazonas region of Brazil - sufficient to compose five hundred doses of the Day Guard serum.
