John and Alex have cooked up a compromise for communication. They don’t launch a satellite, which could be detected (and shot down). Instead, John remote-operates Spike - the unpiloted support CHIMERA unit - into the upper atmosphere, Alex selects a satellite to hack into, and the team gets a few hours of high-latency Internet via a tight-beam downlink.
Costigan, Parker, and other employees of MIA are still off-grid and establishing “alternative accommodations”, the way this team is. But Parker isn’t giving up. She’s already queuing up work for the team on a secret server. With the downlink established, Alex downloads the files, and Alycia calls a meeting to review them.
The message that grabs everyone’s attention is from INTERPOL inspector Lee Yan. It’s a video message, with gigabytes of data attached. The woman, according to Jason, is an expert in Doctor Achilles Chin, and aside from that was able to track the team down in during their visit to Hong Kong. So what does she have for the team now? Everyone’s curious.
The team first met Lee Yan in “The Hidden Fortress”, a year ago. – Ed.
“There’s a delicate situation going on in China. Secrecy is vital. On the one hand, recent information about a certain person leaked out, which is of course inauspicious. On the other hand, I’ve been asked to reach out to whoever I can that I trust. That includes your team. So here we are.”
“A certain individual - the ‘Golden Dragon’ - is a financier and political influencer of tremendous power. They are preparing to make a move which may upend decades of relative stability between China and its neighbors. The government can’t act officially without tremendous repercussions. In fact, they’ll go after you if they get word you’re on the case. The idea here is to find something - anything - some kind of influence or leverage that will either dissuade the Golden Dragon, or at least buy the government a little time to get ahead of the situation.”
On screen, the woman’s face betrays her great concern. “If you take this on, if you make progress, I don’t need to hear about it until you’ve got something to deliver. In fact the less I know about it - officially - the better. And if you made it this far into my message and decide not to tackle it, hey, thanks for humoring a cop.”
She flashes one of those self-effacing smiles, and the video clicks off.
The others look to Jason and Alycia immediately.
“The name is familiar,” Alycia says. “But that’s all I have. Either my father never interacted with the Golden Dragon, which seems unlikely given this description, or he never involved me in those interactions. That’s hardly surprising. Compartmentalization was one of his regular tactics.”
Jason shrugs. “I got nothing either. Dad and Rusty typically worked with official government entities when we traveled internationally. If you weren’t trying to take over the world with all your billions, we mostly ignored you.”
“They could be too big for us, much as I hate to admit it,” Alex says. “This is final boss stuff, we’re still on disc one of the game.”
John nods. “We’re here 'cause we got spanked by a gang of cyborg mercenaries. What makes us think we can tackle someone at that level?”
Emma scowls and points at John. “Next time you’re doing some maintenance, be sure to install some testicles.”
She turns back to Alycia. “Maybe we’re small fry. But it sounds like this was an all hands on deck thing. It’s not just us, it sounds like a bunch of favors are being called in by everyone here.”
Nono nods quickly. “Maybe we can, y’know, poke at the edges of whatever this is, and get something useful? We’re not being asked to break into someone’s secret fortress and kidnap them or anything. Right?”
Alycia glances at Jason as she speaks. “I want to pursue this, but I have a selfish reason for doing so.”
The others look at her curiously, and she elaborates.
“I thought my father had briefed me on his enemies, including the people who’d specialized in his activities. People like Byron Quill, intelligence experts in America, Britain, Russia, and China, that sort of thing.”
She takes a long breath. “I had never learned about Inspector Lee Yan. The oversight… bothers me.”
“Maybe she just sucked,” Emma suggests.
“Except that Dad consulted with her,” Jason counters. “I remember that much. He wouldn’t go to someone who couldn’t help.”
The others look at each other, and shrug.
Emma still looks skeptical, and yet… “Okay. And I get the motive. Know your enemy, all that shit. Mr. Big teaches that a villain should have a relationship with their enemies. They should know 'em, keep track of 'em, understand how they think, all that. But what I don’t get is, if Achilles Chin is gone and Pyrrus is nuked, what does it matter?”
Alycia composes her thoughts. “My father was in many ways a mystery, even to me. But his influence shaped my life. In some ways, it still does. To deny him that power and thus escape it, I have to understand him. Even on seemingly small matters like this.”
Alex speaks up with a sudden grin. “What is this, Feel Team Six? We got a mission. I’m excited! Let’s crush this.”
John’s smile is half smirk, half sympathy. “I guess if we’re careful, we can get something done. Maybe impress the Inspector enough to get her to open up a bit? But… I get wanting to suss out what your dad was thinking, and for your reasons. I’m with ya.”
Nono puts up a fist, and lets out a small but earnest cheer.
Jason gives a thumbs up as well. “I’m mostly curious about any power player that big who escaped our notice, honestly. This ‘Golden Dragon’ must be someone amazing. We gotta step into a larger world somehow, and if the mission can succeed without us, that feels like a good safety net.”
Alycia nods to acknowledge her team. “Very well. We’ll review the information packet and construct a plan of attack.”
The ‘Golden Dragon’ owns an entire artificial island, northeast of the island of Zhoushan and the rest of the archipelago around Shanghai. Smoke plumes and chemical disposal barges indicate that some level of industrial activity takes place, but only on parts of the island. The airspace is strictly controlled. Private helicopters can be seen landing there, but nobody’s sure whether the Dragon lives there or simply uses it for business.
“We’re breaking into someone’s secret fortress,” Nono concludes glumly.
“It’s ideal for our talents,” Jason asserts. “A small mobile team, good technical infiltration skills, and a couple of unfortunately famous faces. We could go blend in somewhere, do this socially, but we’d stand out without more training and technique.”
“We need to get better at that,” Alycia adds with a scowl in Jason’s direction.
Jason holds up his hands and smiles winsomely.
Long-range infrared photography reveals clear signs of heat radiating from specific spots on the island, as well as the water around it.
“They might be desalinating sea water, or using it for cooling,” John suggests. “Maybe there’s vents I can get into.”
Jason frowns. “They’d probably have screens covering the inlets and outlets, if only to keep random fish from gumming up the works accidentally. And anti-Atlantean measures have been rolled out in the last year for secure systems with a path to the ocean. A cautious enough security system would monitor the screens, maybe by running an electrical current through them and tripping an alarm if the current breaks. The new DSC systems do that, for example.”
Alex brightens up. “Why couldn’t John run current through the screen himself?”
“That would be a pretty delicate operation,” Jason muses. “But possible. Let’s put that in our pocket and continue.”
Emma is peering at the screen. “Hey, Golden Boy. You’re pretty boring. That island’s gotta be sitting on something, right? So how about boring a tunnel up from below, like you did back at Clone City?”
Alycia shakes her head. “We’d need a good idea of where to emerge, or we might come out in a chemical tank or something else equally dangerous. Possible, but it would demand extreme caution.”
Alex is reading through what the government has concluded about the Golden Dragon’s interior defenses. “If I can get a direct connection, I should be able to handle the security system. According to these invoices, they’ve bought the good stuff, but it’s still the standard good stuff. And I’ve hacked Rook.”
Nono pipes up. “Hey. Uh, Mr. Quill - uh, Jason? Er, anyway. Jason’s nanobots can move matter around, right? Maybe we don’t drill through the ground. If there’s screens on the water inlets, maybe we don’t cut through it, but move the material of the screen out of the way? That shouldn’t break any electrical current or fiber-optics or whatever, right? Then John can enclose Alex and swim inside, they mute the security system, and the rest of us come in?”
Alycia looks sharply at Jason. He considers the possibilities, and nods. “It could work. I could send a nanobot payload along with John, preprogrammed. If the bots don’t encounter what we expect, nothing happens and we move to plan B.”
Other plans are discussed, discarded, or deferred. At the end of the meeting, Alycia approaches Nono, who still looks deeply uncertain.
“This is what it’s like,” Alycia says quietly. “There’s nothing special or mystical about planning an operation. What you absolutely need is good information about the situation. But once you have that, all you need is clear thinking and a rational mind. Your suggestion is good. If it fails, it’s because we didn’t know enough.”
Nono smiles appreciatively. “I guess we’ll find out. But thank you. I needed to hear that.”
Alycia nods, with a stern expression. “Even if this succeeds, though, don’t let it go to your head. Your life will be full of constant learning. You can never afford to rest on your laurels.”
John and Alex have been prototyping living arrangements using the stealth jet’s airframe. As a result, the jet is now quite comfortable beyond just the cockpit. There’s seats, snacks, and plugins for electronics. The Chimeras are parked aft.
Shanghai is 8,000 miles away. The stealth jet can make a suborbital approach in a matter of hours with a very low chance of detection. So while the interior may be comfortable, the flight itself is not - crushing acceleration on the way up, a queasy few minutes near the Kármán line that delineates Earth and space, then a terrifying sustained dive back toward the planet.
The jet deploys pontoons for a sea landing, and coasts to a stop miles off the coast of China.
“The jet is naturally buoyant,” John explains. “Carbon construction. We could flood it to dive, but there’s also no airlock. So we might be noticed if we hang out here for too long.”
Alycia shakes her head. “We shouldn’t need to be here long. The Chimeras can get us close to our objective. I assume you can remote-operate the jet into a holding pattern at high altitude? Good. For now, let’s observe.”
She takes the lead in opening the dorsal hatch, leading to the roof of the jet, and climbs out. The others follow her up the narrow access ladder.
Alycia ticks off possibilities. “We’re looking for patrol boats. Submersibles. Sentry towers. Autonomous drones. Emplaced cameras. Anything that might spot our approach.”
The sea is salty and the air is hot. Alex lugs some of their spy drones up and out, and starts setting things up to get a closer look at the distant island. Jason’s got binoculars and is scanning the horizon. The others loiter about, happy to just be out of the plane after the rough ride they experienced.
“I wouldn’t mind seeing someone, honestly,” Emma mutters. “Been feeling cooped up in Antarctica and then that jet. Like a hot dog vendor or–”
There’s a flash around Alex. The hacker yelps, and engulfed by a dimly glimpsed shadow, disappears in yet another flash.