Chapter 14

IC (pronounced “ice”) stands for Intrusion Countermeasures. This is an advanced form of Anti-virus and Anti-malware. Black IC is an aggressive form of IC that stops incoming attacks and lashes out with offensive counter-codes that damage the source device of incoming attacks. If a hacker is using Full-Dive technology to directly inject their consciousness into the digital network, Black IC can be lethal.

So I took Bit, Byte, and Gig on a whirling shopping spree. I got a strange sense of déjà vu that I didn’t figure out until I was buying the boys’ street tacos. Thallos had done the same for me before he whisked me away to the Academy. I guess what I was doing was similar. I had bought each boy an expedition backpack, each a separate color to keep them easily organized but dark colors so they would be less noticeable. I got Gig a gray, green, and black camo bag, Byte a red and gray bag, and Bit an orange and brown bag. I also bought each of them new shoes designed for serious wear and tear, and 4 changes of clothes. Two summer outfits and two winter outfits per kid. I packed each of their bags with a steel water bottle with a built-in purification system, a high-power flashlight armed with several flash settings, an insulated adult sleeping bag, a sowing kit with thirty feet of military-grade thread, a complete first-aid kit, 4 REMs (Ready to Eat Meals) a person. I also provided Gig with three full magazines for his pistol.

The last thing I made sure to get them was a Red Brazier to share, with four Greater potency, Honed quality Fire Myst Cluster-sized crystals for fuel for the burner. A Red Brazier is a mobile firepit. The bright red box could burn in the worst of weather and keep lit in anything short of complete submersion or total vacuum.

My final act of weaponized kindness was to purchase each of the three boys two tacos a piece. That totally depleted what little remained of my personal funds for the week. I wound up totally broke on my first day on the job. To help me feel better, I thought of my total loss of funds as a long-term investment. That didn’t stop said investment from being almost physically painful as I watched my digital wallet get turned inside-out.

While we ate, the three gave me a quick rundown of the local area, specifically where to avoid and which gangs held which patches of territory. I promised them another meal the next week if they could give me a few locations where I could pick up supplies and pro-specialized information for a reasonable price. And so I went back to the home base with not a single copper to my name in my personal account.

I walked in through the front door in a dejected stance. I turned around from closing the front door to find Navor sitting at the dining table with a whiskey glass in one hand and a fresh pulp-romance novel in the other. On the table beside the master was a three-quarters full bottle of Blue Flame CopperHead Whiskey. I thought it was too early for drinking, but when I checked the clock on my therra, I found it was 6 PM. I was shocked by this. In a city that never saw the sky and produced its own light, time seemed to have little meaning.

Without looking up, Navor asked, “You find the thief?”

I wasn’t sure how to answer her. Technically, yes, but I not only let them go but gave them supplies and advice to improve their theft skills. I doubted that was what she wanted to hear, so I decided to lie about it and ask about the murder I found.

“Not quite.” I said as I scratched the back of my head in embarrassment. “I thought I found them, but they got away after I got caught up in a Regulator crime scene next door.”

Navor looked at me over the edge of her book as she asked, “Crime scene?”

I stepped into the kitchen, excitedly talking with my hands. “Yeah! Some thief broke in to steal store data but got his brain cooked.”

“It must’ve been black IC.” she said with a shrug before looking back to her book.

“But that’s just it.” I continued with what some might call a manic tone and look in my eye. “I checked. The IC I found was cheap at best, and the cut-ear died trying to steal a registry of customer info and some business notes.” It was then that I realized I had said too much.

Navor set down her glass and book on the table before turning back to me with a look of annoyance and disappointment. “Iver… You’re telling me that you find a victim of Brain Scorch… And the first thing you do is jack into the same system to see what killed him?”

I took a reflexive step back, looking anywhere but at her. I didn’t even notice when the hand the had been rubbing the back of my head subconsciously clenched a fistful of hair and started tugging. 

The gripping and tugging of my hair was something I always seemed to do when I was being scolded for something I knew would be considered wrong.  When I was very young, I was prone to physically punishing myself whenever I got in trouble. When my father realized that he couldn’t totally stop me from these acts, he convinced me to yank on my hair instead of beating my head against a table. The hair tugging became a subconscious action that only really surfaced at times like this scolding. It wasn't until  I saw a therapist that I learned that the self-abuse thing was a common stress response for many types of neuro-divergent individuals. 

 My tail thrashed behind me like a serpent having a seizure. “I-I…” I was doing my best not to panic. Finally, I just gave up on any pretense of hiding my mistake. I dropped my hands to my side and lowered my head in shame. “Yeah. I didn’t think that through.”

“Revnerra’s dark wings, damned right!” She snapped as she slowly rose from her seat. This slow motion was far more threatening than if she had just shot to her feet and stormed toward me. “You are unbelievably lucky that you didn’t get your brains scrambled for that action.”

“I’m sorry, ma’am.” I apologized with guilt, my eyes glued to the floor between my feet. “You’re right.”

“Damn right, I’m right.” Navor chided as she loomed over me despite her only being a few inches taller. “Now, did you, finish, your job?” She spoke each clipt word with authority, both heavy and scolding.

I knew that then was not the time to explain to her the situation with Gig and the others. So, I only shook my head in the negative.

She folded her arms over her chest and turned away with an annoyed huff before she dropped herself back into her seat. “I expect I don’t have to tell you to double down on that job.” she spoke as she refilled her already partly full glass from the bottle. I quickly shook my head again before I fled from the room.

My reason for fleeing the room was more than just feeling chided. I did feel like a total fool for taking the gamble that could have resulted in me frying my synapses. But there was something deeper and more related to the master than to me. The drinking. My father had been a barely functioning alcoholic when he was alive. Because of that, I always found myself on edge when I was in a room with an adult drinking hard liquor.

I rounded the corner to find Ozwald leaning against the wall, clearly listening in. I came to a sudden stop just out of sight of the kitchen as the black Human boy pushed off the wall to give me a broad and cocky smirk. “So Fiend-kin, it sounds like you aren’t leadership material. Getting distracted from the job you were given. Acting impulsively to feed that curiosity. An act that could have gotten you killed.” He spun on his heel and walked down the hall, away from me, with his hands clasped behind his back as he continued to speak over his shoulder. “I would say that it’s a shame that you didn’t wind up in a morgue. But this just gives me more time to prove to the whole party who the genuine leader should be.”

I was about to open my mouth to reply, but Navor called out from the kitchen. At first, I thought she was about to yell at me again or punish me. But she only said, “Ozwald, Maverick, mandatory sparing session. Now.”

I looked over my shoulder with a confused expression. I had not expected the Master to intervene. I shifted my gaze back to Ozwald to see him looking just as confused as I was. Before either of us could move, Ferris’s head poked out from the living room. “Ives’ is sparing?” He asked in an excited tone.

Nel stepped out from the same room with her hands resting behind her head, elbows in the air, her pace casual. “I think I’ll watch this.”

Demierra looked out from the hallway to the shared rooms but said nothing. She did look interested, though.

I gave Ozwald a pitying look with a shrug that said, ‘You heard the Master. There’s nothing I can do.’

I stepped past the Human boy and made my way to the training room that I had yet to visit. The room was half of the house’s footprint as a single rectangular room. Laid in the center of the room were sparing mats across the ground in a space that was ten feet by ten feet. The wall across from the door was lined with racks that held a range of training weapons, and the racks looked to be double-sided and on a swivel. Along the wall parallel to the door was a variety of physical fitness equipment. This equipment ranged from a lift machine equipped with a gravity weight system to a magnetic treadmill to plain and simple barbell weights.

I took off my shoes and stepped on the mats, where I performed a few stretches to limber up. I would have been warmed up from chasing the trio of orphans, but that had been hours ago. Ozwald entered the room looking nervous, and I couldn’t blame the guy. He was training to be Red Shadow. A Mastlok between Silent Heart and Sightless Eye. Assassin/spy training was not geared toward upfront fights. He knew full well that I was in Crimson Blade, which meant that I had to have at least some combat skills. Ozwald had just been dropped into a losing fight with a Darkling he had been mocking since day one. He might as well have been fed to a Leamon Lion.

As Ozwald pulled off his own shoes, looking totally out of place, Ferris, Nennel, Demierra, and Kharmor lined up beside the mats to watch. I eyed the Half-Dwarf for a long moment. He wanted to be in Crimson Blade. If he were smart, he would watch the fighting styles of everyone in the party. I had little doubt that he was looking for a weakness of a Crimson Blade student he could exploit. I would bet good money that after he found a student’s weakness, he would move in to prove himself as more skilled.

I turned back to Ozwald, who was trying to stretch in a manner that looked completely awkward. I was going to shame him so badly that he would have to acknowledge my role. To that end, I told him he could pick any training weapon he wanted and that I was going to spar unarmed.

Ozwald eyed me with suspicion even as he inched over to the weapons wall. He picked a dagger and a pistol with rubber bullets. ‘Good.’ I thought to myself. ‘I was about to put him down while he was even armed with a firearm. That cemented my role among the others as a leader.’

I even set the sparring distance to the edges of the mats. Ten feet between us. Still, technically point blank for a firearm, but with enough distance that he had a clear edge. I told Demierra to signal the start of the match, and the Dracose didn’t waste a second, chopping the air with a hand as she barked, “GO!”

I first turned sideways, minimizing my target area exposed to Ozwald. I watched as he drew a beed on my face. That was an amateur move. I watched his chest for the last breath before he squeezed and tumbled forward. As the gun went off, I rolled under his first shot and up into a crouch. From that crouch, I lunged forward, throwing my whole body forward to close even more distance.

I knew he would attempt to predict my actions if he had learned anything related to combat from Silent Heart. So I tumbled to the side to break my straight-ahead movement. As expected, that threw him off, though only for a fraction of a second, but that was all I needed. I rolled the tumble into a crouch again, popped to my feet, and sprinted at the idiot.

He was smart enough to drop the gun and switch to the dagger. As I closed the distance, he swept the dagger at me, aiming for my chest. But he swung too early. I ducked under the back end of the strike and stopped when we literally came nose to nose. I replied to his sweep at my chest with a leg sweep to take him off his feet. Before he could even begin to drop from the leg sweep, I grasped the wrist of his dagger hand, stepped past him, and shoulder threw him off the mats. He struck the concrete floor face-first with a “THWAP!”

While still holding onto his wrist, I side-stepped so I stood over him, his back between my legs. I dropped ass first onto his back and took his arm with me in at an angle it was not meant to go. There was the pop of a dislocating joint, followed by his howl of pain.

I raised and stepped off Ozwald with an indignant huff as I dropped his arm. He made that much noise for a dislocated shoulder? I had screamed that much when Thallos had broken most of the bones in my arm. For a moment, I thought the asshole was weak before I remembered that I had been through something no one in that could imagine. I had beaten Ozwald without even removing my jacket. So, I not only looked skilled, but I also kept my scars hidden. Win-win.

I ignored his moaning and walked over to the spectators. “So, what did you think?” I asked with my hands raised in a gesture that said the very same thing.

“That was brutal.” Nel said with a wince of pain.

“Really brutal.” Ferris echoed, his face reading both excitement and sympathetic pain.

Kharmor just gave a single grunt before turning to leave the room.

“I don’t agree with anything you just did.” Demierra growled. “You disrespected your opponent and dishonored yourself.”

“What do you mean?” I asked, doing my best to not sound offended by her words.

“You disrespected him. Not challenging him with your own weapons shows ego. Giving a teammate no quarter shows your goal to shame him. You hold no respect for him and didn’t bother to hide it. You overpowered him with only a handful of actions and with no goal to instruct or help him improve. Then you brutalize him after the match was clearly over. You have no honor. I shouldn’t have expected any less from a Fiend-kin.” Demierra sneered the last line before following Kharmor out of the room.

I felt my face contort into a snarl, and my fingers locked into claws at her hate-filled words. The desire to lunge at her invaded my thoughts for a few seconds. I felt the burning urge to show her just how much of a warrior I really was. But I shoved those feelings back down and lowered my head in shame.

“What?” Ferris asked.

“You won and kicked his ass. Were you expecting more?” Nennel asked.

“I was hoping that would prove to the others that I wasn’t total trash.” I admitted as the three of us made to leave the room. As we passed through to the next room, I was dimly aware of Ozwald cursing under his breath.

“Dude, you smeared the guy across the floor like he was an oversized bug.” Ferris commented, dramatically gesturing with his hands as he spoke.

“Well, the ass is more like a mosquito than a Human.” I replied.

“Iver.” Nennel chided. “You’ve only known the guy for two days.”

I scoffed at her before I said, “Two days is enough to know that the dude has a thing against me.”

“So what?” Nel pressed. “Try to get to know the guy. Give him a chance. You know Darklings have a bad rep. How about you prove to him that you're not a terrible person?”

I gave Nel a skeptical look before leading the other two toward the kitchen. As we went, I said, “Sis, he already has his mind made up about me. I could be as sweet as a cherub angel to him, and he’d think it’s a ploy to get something.”

As soon as I entered the kitchen, I made a B-Line for the fridge, pointedly ignoring Navor as she kept reading and drinking. I pulled the doors of the chill box open and rummaged around for something edible. Nennel stood behind me as she continued to lecture. “Come on, Iver. If you keep at it and do your best, you can totally prove to the others that you’re worth following. Even Ozwald could change his mind about you.”

I stepped away from the fridge with three slices of bread, four slices of cheddar cheese, two slices of salami, and two slices of roast beef. I set my ingredients on the counter and prepared a frying pan on a heated stovetop. As I pulled out a lid for the pan, I said, “So what? I’m supposed to play nice and trust the dude not to try to kill me?”

“Kill you how?” Ferris asked, with his arms crossed over his chest.

I stacked up a double-decker grilled cheese, layered bread, cheese, salami, roast beef, cheese, bread, cheese, salami, roast beef, cheese, then bread. I capped my sandwich with the pan lid and set the stove top to low as I said, “He could stab me, lay a trap in a doorway, poison my food. If the guy wanted to, he could turn me into a corpse if he was given the chance.”

Nel stepped up to the island in the kitchen and propped her hands against it as she said, “You really think that Ozwald would move to kill you?”

I pointed to her with a spatula that I had just found in a nearby drawer. “Damn skippy, Sis. I need to expect any of these new members to want me dead and to try to pull it off at any time.”

As I checked under the pan lid to check the progress of my sandwich, Ferris spoke up, “Dude, you’re paranoid.”

“Is he?” Navor piped up from behind her book. She lowered her reading material and picked up her glass. “You need to expect any member of a team to kill you.”

“Anyone?” Ferris asked.

“Kid,” Navor said in a patient but tired tone. “You need to learn that anyone could want you dead. One thing that Iver’s already learned from Thallos is that you could be attacked at any time, in any manner.”

“You’re saying Iver could just stab me at any time?” Ferris accused with obvious skepticism.

I plucked the pan lid up and scooped my golden brown sandwich from the pan with my bare hand as I said, “Yeah. That’s pretty much what she’s saying.”

Ferris looked at me like I had just claimed I was going to stab his puppy with his own kitchen knife. I shrugged at the Quint, my hands up in an apologetic gesture, sandwich in hand. “It’s not like I really would do that. She’s just telling you to be ready for anything at all times.”

“How in the nine hells am I supposed to be ready for an attack at any time from any direction?!” Ferris snapped in a panic.

I took a large bite from my sandwich before I said, “Ferris. Calm down. The best way to think of it is simple.”

“Simple how?!” He lashed out at me.

“Check your room for traps before bed. Check your room for traps when you wake up. Fix your own meals. And when you walk around outside, act on high alert.” I said this as plainly as I could before taking another bite of my grilled cheese. I was surprisingly hungry after the sparing match.

“Oh yeah. Like that’s simple.” Ferris sarcastically accused.

I gave Ferris a helpless shrug. “It’s what I do every day. Thallos trapped my bed before I would go to sleep. He would wake me up in the middle of the night with an attack. He trapped my bedroom door I don’t know how many times. And he poisoned my food plenty. Honestly, dude, I check my room before bed every night. I sleep lightly in case of an intruder. I check my bedroom door before leaving my room. I also try only to eat food that I make myself, food made by someone I trust or someone who could not have expected me to purchase from. Even as a backup, I keep a range of antidotes on my person at all times. That’s all because of Thallos being a total lunatic of an instructor who taught in the most brutal way possible.”

“Holy crap.” Ferris cursed. Both he and Nennel turned to Navor for confirmation. She only nodded without looking up from her novel with a distracted, “Yep. He’s telling the truth.”

Only partly paying attention, I turned off the stove and tossed my cooking tools into the sink as I ate my grilled cheese. “Sorry guys, but I need to do some work. I’ll see you tomorrow.” With that hurried excuse, I made my way to my room.

I finished my sandwich as I closed and locked my bedroom door. I longingly eyed by crafting table before I flopped atop my bed and activated the search engine on my therra-node. Without a moment’s hesitation, I searched the Crossline Electronic Store for any related news on the networks. The first thing I found was chatter about a break-in and a corpse. Digging a little deeper, I found that a mega-corporation called Vartex was trying to buy the shop, but the owner was resisting. With some digging into the mega-corp, I found that Vartex specialized in commercial electronic sales and repair. There were a few mentions of rumors that Vartex had been doing some experimental work for the military, but I couldn’t find anything definitive on that front.

I checked out the corporation’s webpage and those of each of its subsidiaries. I meticulously scoured each page of each site with a focus on finding critical information. The mega-corp had its fingers in dozens of companies, but they all revolved around constructing, selling, and repairing electronic appliances. I could tell with a cursory scan of each website that they weren’t picky about what they made, sold, or repaired. If an item was powered by electrical Myst Crystals, they had some part in it.

After checking out the websites for some general information on this hostile mega-corp, I switched sources and went looking for chat forums, discussing companies that Vartex was aiming to buy and any information on their tactics. After about two hours of searching and reading, I had a pretty firm grasp of how the company ran their company buyout schemes. First, they quietly checked out the target company’s monthly income, monthly spending, and average customer base. If the target company met the desired standards, they would first approach with a buyout offer set on the lower end of the company’s estimated value. If the initial offer failed, they would double the offer. If the doubled offer failed, they would search for blackmail material such as safety violations or cutting corners in the process regulations. This frequently worked, even if they had to plant false evidence of these infractions. If even that failed, rumor had it that Vartex would have the customer information stolen to both incriminate the target company and undersell services to the customers in an effort to force the company to sell out of lost profits.

This wasn’t the first time I had heard of similar tactics in the nation of Ventic. This was a blatant abuse of the corporatocracy nation governing structure. I was disgusted by this predatory practice used to consolidate economic and political power, but it was commonplace in Ventic. I knew that each type of government had its own flaws that led to corruption, but this political loophole just seemed especially toxic to me.

I then moved from the forums to the customer list that I had picked up from the shop when I broke in and hooked up. As was standard, the customer profiles had full name, personal or company address, contact information, and payment information. I won’t deny a temptation to use the payment information to gain a few credits to make up for what I had spent on Gig, Bit, and Byte, but I refused to sink that low. What I did do, was plug in the addresses for several of the customers into the GPS can figure out their locations. Out of the thousand-some-odd customers, I selected twenty-five addresses in batches of two or three with the same district code to check distance. After I got a general sense of the range of districts, I narrowed it all down to regular customers in the same district as Crossline Electronic and myself.

I picked out eight addresses within walking distance and pinned them on my therra. Afterward, I shut everything down and made an effort to sleep before I needed to get up. The next day, I was going to need to convince Navor that I was still looking for the thieves while I was actually walking around the neighborhood.