Industrial Strength Magic - Chapter 222: Spycraft is Dirty Dangerous and Boring

Cargo Manifest

-Objects obtained from Site 14, confiscated from survivors of SEAL team 5

Destination: Furlow Containment Center.

Purpose: Study and research for the purpose of understanding Exo-humans, possible safeguard against Subject 84.

Note: Contents are to be considered fragile. Keep away from water.

Perry glanced back at the top-secret document detailing the frightening growth of ‘subject 84’

“Well, that was obviously Tyrannus,” Perry muttered to himself, shuffling through more of the documents, which largely dealt with the comings and goings Of Manitan detainees.

Perry was amused at how many of them escaped with magic until the U.S. government figured out that containment was impossible without the help of other Manitians.

Marigold was one of the escapees…

Who then went on to sell out other Manitians in exchange for immunity.

“Just when I thought I couldn’t dislike Gramma any more,” Perry murmured. It was hard to judge her though. Perry hadn’t been there. He didn’t know.

Gramma made choices to survive and thrive. And God help anyone who got in the way of that.

“Still…” Perry folded that little piece of blackmail up and slipped it into his pocket for a rainy day.

We all gotta make choices.

Now, where is this Furlow Containment Center?

Thankfully, the shipping manifest had the address.

Perry connected to his home computer and referenced a map of the Old Country.

There it is, Perry thought to himself, isolating the destination, then comparing it to his more accurate satellite map of North America.

Portal.exe

The portal wobbled in front of him for a moment before it winked out.

Que?

There was interference.

Perry’s portal wasn’t shielded against interference, because he’d consciously made the decision to have infinite portals without the expense of shielding versus one a week with shielding.

Most of the time…MOST of the time, it was way more convenient to be able to flit around anywhere he wanted, but there very occasionally times like this where Perry kicked himself.

Hmm…What are we looking at here? A djinn sent to kill me, some kind of demon, or an attack of some kind?

There were only so many ways to interfere with magic.

On high alert, Perry ducked his head out the door, carrying the box of top secret documents, overflowing with all the letters he’d stuffed into the top.

Nothing in the hall.

Perry frowned, creeping forward silently.

Odds were whatever was blocking his teleport was aware he was there, but it was never a good idea to just shout ‘who’s there’ into the void. That was just asking for it.

Perry went blind as his Light spell winked out, unable to withstand whatever was coming for him, leaving him alone in the soundless, pitch-black tomb.

Well, not completely soundless, Perry thought as a faint rumble overcame his heartbeat.

What am I hearing?

Perry paced through the empty halls, imposing his memory of the halls on his location, reaching out to touch the corner of the hallway as it turned into the mess hall.

The sound was louder now.

There was a machine-like quality to it…

Ah, the rumble of an engine!

Tyrannus’s stooges had come back for some reason.

Do they know I’m here?

Perry quickly discovered what that reason was when he stepped in something squishy.

What the…

Perry knelt down and touched the substance.

Wet. Sticky, thick. Full of chunks. Smelled like cement.

Perry tasted it.

Definitely wet concrete…laced with minerals that caught and scattered essence wavelengths.

That was expensive stuff…before Perry had invented a way to grow it basically for free.

Done in by my own genius. Not a bad way to go, Perry thought with a frown.

Perry knew what the plan was now: Fill the ancient bunker with concrete that interfered with magic, making it extremely difficult for anyone to follow after Tyrannus. Specifically Perry.

But does he know I’m here?

Perry pushed forward, gradually slowing as the concrete got deeper. Ankle deep, then knee deep.

It was up to his waist when he saw the light of day from outside, and his enhanced hearing picked up the sound of people talking.

Idle chatter while they accomplished a boring task.

“-because you know what would happen.”

“Yeah, I know. Today the rig got caught in the mud. We’re on the same page.”

Ah.

The people who were filling the bunker now were supposed to have done it yesterday. They were covering their asses and going to misreport the timeline of events to prevent disciplinary action.

It was a very human thing to do.

Because what difference did one day make when pouring concrete?

They didn’t know Perry was here.

Matter of fact, as far as Tyrannus was concerned, this bunker was filled with magic-obfuscating concrete yesterday, while Perry was wasting his time with Dave’s horn.

Excellent, Perry thought, turning around and wading deeper into the bunker, trying to outpace the concrete.

He couldn’t go out the entrance. He didn’t have anything that would get past them without being noticed, and killing them would throw up major red flags.

The entire point of this endeavor was to keep things secret from the dragon.

So…Perry needed another way out.

The air vents were about half the size of Perry’s head.

He made it work.

It was claustrophobic, dangerous work, but Perry managed to make the air vents just elastic enough to pass him. The whole time Perry spent wriggling through the vents far too small for a human body, his arms trapped in front of him while he wiggled along with just the strength of his fingers and toes, he tried not to think about words like ‘colon’, ‘small intestine’, ‘sphincters’, and ‘lubricant’.

About half an hour later, Perry shoved his way through the vent fan, then the triple-layer, molding air filter, then the overgrown grate, finding himself on a ledge overlooking the entrance, where a crew of two men were standing idly by while the concrete pourer did its work.

It’s gonna take at least six of those, Perry thought, settling back against the wall and enjoying the ability to move his limbs. They would be leaving soon.

If he tried climbing now, there was a good chance they’d catch sight of him. He’d put a great deal of effort into preventing bits and pieces of vent from raining down on them while he’d been forcing his way out of the vent.

He couldn’t teleport away, half covered in gradually drying concrete, studded with silvery chunks of mazonite.

So Perry got comfortable and waited for them to leave.

About twenty minute later, they hopped into the rig to get a full one. Once they were out of sight, Perry started climbing higher, making his way to the top of the cliff and beyond, trudging out into the woods.

With a bit of convincing from Spendthrift, the magic blocking concrete flaked away clean, leaving him able to summon a portal after only a few miles of hiking through the woods.

Thankfully no mega-bears bothered him.

Portal.exe

Following his pattern from the last bunker, Perry teleported to the top of a mountain to give himself a better view before he closed in on the location in question.

And thanked every god he knew of that he’d done so.

The Furlow Containment Center was a white complex hidden away between two mountains, and it was absolutely crawling with Eternal Empire Supers.

Some of them were flying…others were flickering back and forth, barely visible to Perry’s enhanced senses, while still others seemed to revel in their enhanced strength, bouncing around like they were on the moon.

They wore similar outfits that Karen and her team had been. Except…

Perry squinted.

Trainees? Is this place Temple? Perry thought, frowning.

You mean I could’ve known where Tyrannus keeps his secrets right off the bat?Dangit.

Perry ducked down and considered his options.

#1, he could duck out right here and now, security would tighten tremendously, Tyrannus would pack up everything of value and hide it again, fully aware that something had slipped through the cracks and made its way to Perry.

Alternatively…he could push further in. Try and slide in under the collective nose of dozens of supers, some of whom probably had detection-type superpowers.

The question was, could he do so in a way that wouldn’t escalate his cold war with the dragon into full-blown conflict?

Perry crossed his arms and stroked his chin contemplatively. There was very little chance of succeeding the smart way.

So…What would Brendon do?

Wayward’s Defensive Disguise.exe

In his lair, the artificial Lunt Bone was carved into a heavyset young man practically rippling with muscle and a baseless can-do attitude.

About an hour later, Perry was sitting in the reception room of Temple doing an interview across from a woman wearing severe clothes and a severe bun.

Based on Karen’s words and behavior, he’d kinda assumed everything would be run by fatalistic zealots, but the intake was surprisingly normal.

“And how did you discover you were Blessed?”

“Just goin’ about my business an’ One day I was tougher and stronger,” Perry said, flexing unnecessarily. It was the truth too, in case that spell laid under the floorboards was the kind that detected lies.

“I’m going to need specifics, Mr. Smith.” The receptionist said. “What did you do that brought your Blessing to light?”

“I eh…” Perry hesitated a moment. “Confessed to a girl.” That I was the asshole.

“Ah. I see.”

Scritch scratch.

“And your blessing?”

“I got the strength and speed of at least a dozen men,” Perry said, flexing again.

“That’s it?” the receptionist asked drily, her eyebrow raised.

“Is a dozen…not enough?” Perry asked, dodging the question.

“No, it’s just…more suited for civilian law enforcement than high-level Acolytes. We train for law enforcement as well. And it is a safer job. The cut-off for Acolyte work is thirty times stronger than an un-Blessed.

How would a teenage boy react to not being awesome enough to be sent into the meatgrinder?

“Aw…” Perry pouted, channelling his inner Brendon. “You sure I can’t get put on the Acolyte path?”

“That remains to be seen, Brendon” the woman said, spinning the pen in her fingers. “The first two weeks you spend here are going to be evaluative, and if your Blessing is hiding anything more than simple strength and speed, we’ll draw it out of you. After which, you’ll be assigned to a team of matching Blessed, and trained as a unit.

“Neat. I am pretty interested to see what my limits are.” Perry said.

“Take this letter and find your dorm room in the Physical wing,” She said offering a letter to Perry. “Daily prayer is at eight. The dorms are co-ed, but don’t think of that as an invitation to try something stupid. Some of the girls there are fifty or more times stronger than baseline, and will snap your neck if you provoke them.”

“There’s only one girl for me,” Perry said with a grin.

The interviewer’s expression twitched microscopically, a faint flash of red reflecting from her iris that Perry suspected an unenhanced human wouldn’t be able to perceive.

“I suggest you don’t lie during your stay here, Mr. Smith.”

Huh.

Earlier, when asked his name, Perry had said ‘you can call me Brendon Smith’.

Which was not a lie.

A moment later, Perry took his rucksack over his shoulder and sauntered through the halls of the dragon’s super-secret Super training facility.

What are the chances he found the books on the manifest and removed them a long, long time ago, leaving only the facility and it’s infrastructure around to train young supers? Pretty good. Still, there’s probably good, juicy info to be gleaned here.

This place was in all ways similar to a high school, right down to the couple secretively making out in the side-halls.

Perry hated it.

“Hey are you new here?” A teen about Junior age asked, approaching.

Damnit.

“Yep, just trying to find the Physical wing.” Perry said.

He knew exactly where it was, but the Physical building looked new. Perry was looking for the older sections of building, hoping to find some old records that might lead him further on his treasure hunt.

As he spoke to the kid, half a dozen more young men dropped by, stopping to watch the interaction.

“Oh sure, the physical hall. Right through there.” The jock said, pointing through the old building, almost exactly away from the Physical hall.

Perry raised a brow.

“You sure?”

It didn’t really bother him that they were misleading him intentionally. They were sending him where he wanted to go, after all.

“Of course, brother. We gotta look out for newly initiated juniors.”

The idiots behind him could barely hold back their giggles, and Perry caught whispered snippets like ‘he’s toast’ and ‘zombie time’.

“Well, if you’re sure,” Perry said brightly, shaking the kid’s hand before setting off into the deepest depths of the labyrinthine complex, ignoring the easily audible laughter behind him.

Learn to haze better, geez.

The surroundings subtly grew more dilapidated and ancient as he walked through the halls, ducking his head into each room and giving it a cursory scan to check for hidden compartments.

Shadows lengthened as light sources grew few and far between.

Mood lighting, Perry thought as he inspected the black mold growing in the corners of the building.

“A new recruit?” A girl’s voice emanated from a couch leaking stuffing. “That’s rare. Unless you’re lost.”

She was black-haired, reading a book on the glory of Tyrannus.

I wonder how many ghost-writers he uses. Should I write books about how cool I am? Propaganda has its uses.

The girl glanced up at him, and Perry saw a naked projection of her consciousness leave her body, placing fingertips on his temples. This was not something a normal human could perceive, but his Potent Thaumaturge class allowed him to see a lot of things people weren’t supposed to. Including the abilities of Minders.

She cocked her head.

“What…are you?” She asked.

Perry delicately plucked the mental projection’s wrists away from his head, doing his best not to damage her mind in the process.

“Rude. I’m a new recruit.”

“Not like any one I’ve ever seen before. Your mind is…terrifyingly strange.”

“And you’ve been here how long?” Perry asked, ready to dunk on how few people she’d seen come through.

“Fifteen years.”

“Buh…” Perry lost his follow up dunk. She looked eighteen. So she’d been here almost her entire life.

“Soul-Acolytes aren’t allowed to leave save for special circumstances. The Physical Acolytes send boys over here on dares. I spend most of my time here so I can send them back before Kyle can hurt them.” She said, her voice cracking a bit. “Did no one tell you that you that there’s no coming back from here?”

“Um….”

Perry turned around and found a complex, one-way ward that would prevent anyone with Minder abilities from crossing the threshold without permission.

Looked like the Eternal Empire had the same deal as everywhere else: Minders got the short end of the stick because nobody wanted them messing with their head, but everyone understood how valuable they were.

That meant now that he’d entered and resisted a mental probe, there was no way to leave now without raising suspicion. They would eventually figure out he was a spy.

“Interesting.” Perry said, kneeling down beside the girl’s sofa. “Listen…”

“Ava.”

“Listen Ava, you seem cool, so I’mma level with you. I’m not trapped here. I’m a spy who is looking for buried secrets under the Temple.”

“I’m telling you this because I need an inside opinion on how much destruction I should wreak on the way out. Do you want me to break the wards keeping you here?”

“Don’t do that,” she said quietly. “If I didn’t have restraints, I would go insane and start mind-controlling everyone around me like the cancer I am.”

“Well, that sucks,” Perry muttered. Brainwashing works on Minders too, as long as you get ‘em young.

“Hey,” A male voice called from the side. “Are you really a spy?”

Perry glanced over and spotted another Minder. Young man in his twenties. Unhealthy look to him, angry. Presumably Kyle.

“Yup.”

An ethereal projection of the young man’s mind catapulted out of him, aiming for Perry’s brain.

“If I can catch a spy, they’ll let me go home!” Kyle shouted, spittle flying in his eagerness.

Perry smacked the projection out of the air, dispersing it into ethereal smoke, and Kyle stiffened before keeling over backwards, eyes bulging.

“Not necessarily,” Perry said.

“Is he…gonna live?” Ava asked

Perry nudged Kyle’s torso with his foot, prompting the glassy-eyed young man staring at the ceiling to start breathing.

“If he puts his mind back together again.” Perry said. “Anyway, where’s the oldest portion of the facility?”

Ava pointed to the right.

“You know, if you’re worried about your powers corrupting you, there’s a whole city out there full of people that they don’t work on.” Perry said, heading that way.

“Really?” Ava asked, climbing off her chair to follow after him.

“Yup. It’s on the East Coast, though, so it’s quite the trip. I could drop you off there after this if you want.”

“Is this a test of my loyalty?” Ava asked, trotting to keep up as he walked through the halls, finding solid concrete and the ancient impressions of lab equipment.

Excellent.

“If it were, I’d never admit it,” Perry said, tapping on walls and inspecting floors.

“This concrete here looks newer,” Perry said, motioning to what appeared to be a filled in stairwell.

Melt.exe

Ava gasped and stepped back as the floor melted in a perfect circle, allowing Perry to dive down into the liquid concrete.

Perry had to Melt the floor a couple more times before his fingers came across older concrete, defining an old storage room. He swam through it, side to side until his fingertips found boxes encased in concrete.

He swam them back up to the surface, tossing them onto the floor before dragging himself out of the liquid and back up onto the surface.

“I wonder what the thought process was,” Perry said, tapping on the boxes to make the concrete flake away from the protective plastic casing. “Maybe there were clues here that Billy couldn’t quite figure out, so he preserved them rather than burned them.

“All burned information passes through the hands of Ignis demons.” Ava said.

Perry glanced at her. That was true. Tyrannus had deals with demons, and allowing any information to pass into their hands could potentially become a weakness they could use against him.

“Interesting.” Perry said, taking off his cement-soaked outer shirt and wringing it out.

Underneath was a black shirt with a white outline of a pair of glasses with a fake nose and mustache attached. Written underneath it:

In Disguise.

Ah, it’s been a while.

Perry peeled away the plastic and began rifling through the boxes of documents until he found the one containing the records of the time the shipment from site 14 should’ve arrived.

They never received it? Perry thought. Matter of fact, nothing from Site 14 ever made it here. The type of goods that were ‘contained’ here were largely unrelated to Manita.

So…where did they go?

Perry sat and thought about it for a moment.

Was the extremely well-hidden documentation a red herring? Or…was there some kind of simple cypher that people in the know could interpret?

Big, complex, obvious codes are obviously codes but simple in-jokes could take a thousand mathematicians to decipher while being incredibly easy to remember.

Keep away from water. Perry mused. That statement at the end of the cargo manifest…was unusual. Keeping cargo from getting wet was Standard Operating Procedure. Perry hadn’t thought twice about it, but now that he’d found no evidence of its delivery here…

Does that phrase refer to a specific facility, perhaps one on the coast? Or one in the desert?

Perry wasn’t ‘in the know’. Didn’t matter how smart he was if he was missing critical information.

But…I might know of someone who is in the know.

A klaxon broke through Perry’s musing.

“Attention, an intruder has infiltrated Temple. All trainees, locate and apprehend anyone you don’t recognize, or displaying suspicious behavior.”

“Well, that’s my que,” Perry said, standing and kicking the boxes of top secret information back into the concrete soup he’d retrieved them from before allowing it to harden again, removing any evidence he’d been there.

Perry’s metaphorical ears popped as the facility went into lockdown, a field of teleport-restricting essence clamping down around the facility.

Guess I’m gonna have to leave the old-fashioned way. With my feet.

“Hey,” Ava said, grabbing his sleeve as he began walking away.

“Eh?”

“Can you…really get me out of here?” She asked.

Wayward’s Defensive Disguise.exe

Ava shrieked and staggered backwards as the Brendon disguise sloughed off of him in a pile of blood and viscera.

“Let’s find out,” Perry said with a bloody smile as his appearance shifted to match the kid who’d pointed him this direction.