Reconnaissance, day one.
Alycia locates a suitable spot for overwatch, high up and away from the mining complex. She brought binoculars out of habit, and there’s enough tarp, rope, and other things in the delivery truck to construct a makeshift camp that’ll keep the two girls from being burned by the sun or chilled by the desert.
Food and drink aren’t hard to come by. They just delivered some via truck, and can go steal more from the office as needed. The miners and other workers here sleep in barracks, and there’s at most a skeleton crew at night to ward off stray animals. As for the truck itself, Alex files a series of electronic missives that paint the picture of a hijacking and disappearance. It won’t hold up under any scrutiny, but it’ll keep the authorities from coming here with questions.
SNOWMAN’s plan for infiltration is easy: “walk in, tell them I’m a miner, and get started”. Alycia, ever doubtful despite the generally lifeless attitude of everyone working here, phones home for Alex to do some computer wizardry so the Mongolian Mining Corporation’s computers have a record of him.
“You’ll also need to speak Chinese.”
“I don’t.”
This leads to a practice session where a few key phrases - “yes sir”, “no sir”, “right away”, and so on - enter John’s vocabulary, and Alycia grudgingly promises to sit on the other end of a radio link and prompt him when to say what.
He sneaks in, and Alycia listens to him stumble his way through a few key explanations. Miners need uniforms, safety gear, and tools. But the two of them manage, somehow, and SNOWMAN is off to the mines.
He’s swallowed an enzyme that will react when the drug enters his system, whether via eating, a tablet he’s given, or some other means. When he feels the reaction, he’ll know where he was and what he was doing, and that’ll provide the next link in the chain.
By the time he’s actually down there, working in the coal mine and humming “16 tons” over the radio, Alycia is thoroughly disgusted with how sloppy this whole plan feels, and thoroughly appalled by how successful it’s been in spite of that. But most of all, she’s horrified at why it’s working. Up until now, a drug that induces despair was an awful theoretical, a reason to pursue her family in whatever permutation of existence they occupy. Now, seeing a whole complex filled with human beings who just can’t care about anything, she’s resolved to bring this whole thing down, and thwart the ambitions of anyone who’d do it to living people.
This cannot be forgiven.
Reconnaissance, day two.
It’s definitely introduced at meal times. That makes sense, given that the cafeteria is the one place everyone is guaranteed to come and consume something. It’s not in the food, either, but in a pack of tablets and capsules everyone is expected to take. For the miners, this includes a hefty dose of Vitamin D to compensate for the time they spend underground. For others, it’s a multi-vitamin that supplements the canned, fried, and microwaved food staples that keep the place going.
Nono is having a hard time roughing it, but Alycia notes a marked reduction in sniveling since Hong Kong. There’s still basics of wilderness survival that Alycia must impart, but that takes time and the student is receptive.
For that matter, John hasn’t said much. Hard physical labor means nothing to a superhuman android so he wouldn’t complain about that, but Alycia expected more grousing about being stuck underground, or smug asides about robot superiority.
Leo Snow was always empathetic, sometimes dangerously so. Maybe these peoples’ plight is worse for him, since he’s working side by side with them while I’m up here.
Reconnaissance, day three.
Alycia snuck into the cafeteria overnight and found where the pills were kept. She pocketed a few samples, just in case. She found nothing indicating an origin, other than that they’re packaged in plastic, so on a morning call via satellite phone, she asks Alex for advice.
“If we bring the pills back, can we analyze them to determine place of origin?”
There’s a couple minutes of typing over the line. “Actually, bring the packaging back, you can analyze the plastic to get a solid trace on origin.”
Alycia privately acknowledges things were simpler in Halcyon. She could just bop down to Jason’s lab to analyze something like this. Nor does she have a squad of soldiers she can dispatch for something like this. Out here, it’ll take days, rather than minutes. “At least we can rule out local production,” she says at last. “These tablets were packaged for transport.”
Reconnaissance, day five.
Few people visit the mine, as expected.
Alycia has done some calculations in her head. “Number of miners, estimated volume for storing the tablets, tablets per unit volume, daily rate of consumption, all mean they restock once every two weeks, give or take. We have to be ready to trace the delivery back to its origin, but there’s other lines we can pursue too, and we’re losing out on those by staying here.”
“I can stick around,” John suggests. “I’ll disappear into the mines, sneak back to the camp here, and take over observations. Whatever truck or helicopter they use, either I can sneak aboard, or Alex can track via satellite.”
Alycia grudgingly sees the logic in this. She turns to Nono. “We’ll go back to Hong Kong. You’ll do the forensic analysis of the packaging.”
Nono hesitates, but nods. “I think I can do that.”
“Alright. We’ll head out this evening.”
During the afternoon, a car pulls up. Two women wearing paranja - the Central Asian equivalent of the full-coverage burqa - step out. They’re greeted, as the team’s arrival was, and escorted inside.
“That’s wrong,” Alycia comments, and rises.
“What’s wrong?” Nono asks.
“The people wearing those garments. They drove here themselves, no male escort, no nothing. I’m going down there.”
Nono, worriedly, takes up the binoculars as Alycia slides down the slope. Now it’s just her, all alone in the wilds of Mongolia.
There’s a fence to keep wild animals out, but Alycia long since cut a hole in it. Now she hurries down the hill from her camp, sprints to the fence line, ducks through the hole, and makes for the main building.
The visitors have a ten-minute lead on her, but she’s confident Nono will alert her if they leave the building again. There wasn’t much traffic inside the offices, this looks like some kind of official visit, and they’ll probably be received in one of the limited number of conference rooms.
She makes a mental note of the car’s make, model, and license plate, and parkours her way up to the roof via the forklift. Any building in a desert, hot or cold, needs ventilation and air distribution, and she pops off a vent cover and hops inside.
The air is horribly hot and stale, but Alycia mutes her instincts to flee, and crawls. Not here, not here… yes, here.
The meeting is already in progress. Watching through the ceiling vent, she can see the two women and a television screen. A video conference call? Probably.
She’s missed the first minutes of the call, but it goes on long enough for her to gather some useful information. What she hears makes her blood chill.
First, there’s someone named “senior commander Saito” who wants to meet with the mystery party on the other end of the call. Second, it’s about obtaining more of the drug. The call is about negotiating a time and place for the trade.
Alycia finally learns the name of the drug itself: “Cháwǎn”. The word means “teacup”, and Alycia bitterly understands the allusion. The Tao Te Ching says, “shape clay into a vessel; It is the space within that makes it useful.” Her father, and apparently her brother Pyrrhus, want to shape people the same way, and pour their wills into the waiting hollowness. But who are these other people, who want the same thing?
It’s the third bit of intel that really worries her, though.
“We have information for you as well,” one of the women announce. “There is a spy named Leo Snow. American. He infiltrated our territory recently. He may pursue your operation. His associates are–”
“Jason Quill, Alycia Chin, and other members of the Menagerie,” the mysterious voice on the call announces. “The master knows of them. Snow and Chin have disappeared, but we are close to picking up their trail. Quill is being dealt with by us.”
Alycia retreats into the vents. “Agent R,” she whispers into her comms. “Change of plans. Instruct SNOWMAN to get into the vehicle parked out front. You are to take the truck back to Hong Kong, tonight. I’m staying here.”
“You sure?” John asks over the radio.
“I’m less sure of everything now,” Alycia admits. “But this is it. This is the endgame. It’s do or die.”
“Well, good luck on the doing and not dying,” John quips.
Alycia is sure Nono is going to say something now - express uncertainty about her part of the job, say she can’t do it, say it’s scary, something. But no. “Wilco, Charade. Over and out.”
Is she taking the patches again? Or is she, herself, growing into her dream?