"Triple Threat" (ADN Spy Story by Sunhawk)
Posted: 2006-03-15 08:51pm
Another writer in the TGG circle - who doesn't have an SDN membership IIRC - wrote this, so I'm cross-posting it here.
Triple Threat - En Garde
It was dark, except for flashes of bright light stabbing through the air. From the dance floor came the pulsating rhythms of old rock 'n roll favorites, belted out by a popular young cover band. Club 1984 was new, only open for a month, and cashed in on an '80's revival' theme, old style kitsch and glitter adorning the walls, including the tail end of an ancient Chevy sticking out above the bar. The music was loud enough that it easily covered conversations at the booths and tables, forcing people to almost yell to be heard, but the atmosphere was fun and exciting, and the club was popular as could be.
It was also right across the street from a government building, and many of the 'regulars' were employees 'over there', which added more zest and zing to the club, after all, 'over there' was the HQ of the Alliance Intelligence Department... and nothing like having real James Bonds in the club to add spice to the evening.
Stefan Kingsley sat at the bar with a few of his co-workers in the Counter Intel section, relaxing after another long day trying to keep others from doing onto the Alliance what the Alliance regularly tried to do unto them. Shop talk was forbidden, here in Club 1984, so they just relaxed, listened to the music, and drank together. The club was a bit crowded, but most of the patrons were on the dance floor, leaving a few empty stools at the bar.
Stefan glanced up at movement next to him; a lovely if somewhat diminutive lady had sat down, ignoring him for the moment while she flagged down the overworked barkeep. She was dressed quite conservatively, a neat black business dress-suit, like what many bankers and lawyers and such wore, that did nothing to conceal the figure beneath. Stefan nudged one of his coworkers, and then returned to his beer, glancing over from time to time until he caught her eye.
He cleared his throat, smiling easily. "First time I've seen you here, ma'am" he half-shouted over the pounding music.
She started a bit, then smiled back at him, the dim light making it hard to tell if she were blushing or not. "Ahhh, first time I've come" she replied, almost drowned out. She glanced away as the barkeep returned with her drink, then back. "You are a regular I take it?"
"Oh, I come here from time to time. Names Stefan" he replied, holding out one hand.
"Ahhh, pleased to meet you, Stefan, Anne" she replied, smiling brightly before taking a sip of her drink with her free hand. She glanced over her shoulder, in the direction of the AID building, then back at Stefan, much to his amusement.
"Yes, I do work there, no I'm not James Bond" he replied with a chuckle, drawing a laugh from her. There was a brief pause in the music, as the band paused between numbers, laughing and joking with the crowd. Anne shifted a bit on her stool, facing Stefan a bit more directly.
“Oh, how disappointing.” She replied, eyes twinkling with mischief. “I’ve always wanted to meet James Bond and find out how he could stand those awful martinis.”
Stefan laughed, turning as well. “Well, they aren’t that bad, but certainly not my drink of choice. More the beer drinking type, to be honest with you. Mind if I bought you a drink, Anne?”
Anne pretended to consider it, but then nodded “Well, far be it from me to refuse free beer.”
With a chuckle Stefan turned and waved down the barkeep, while his instincts started pinging on him, whatever Anne was, she was a player… but what sort of player was the question. He was one of the top people in counter intelligence precisely because of his instincts, and he was now hearing internal warning bells going off.
“So, Anne, what do you do for a living?” he asked, acting as casual as can be.
She shrugged, taking another drink, “Well, it’s somewhat hard to explain to somebody outside the business, but I’m what you would call a facilitator. A… relationship development specialist, so to speak.” She shrugged, chuckling. “Nothing nearly as glamorous as working across the street, I assure you, I just match clients together to facilitate business relationships.”
He relaxed a bit internally, perhaps that was what was setting off his internal radar. Anybody who worked in that sort of job would have some of the qualities his instincts usually associated with agents. “Oh, I see. What firm, if I may be so bold?” he replied, looking genuinely curious.
“Oh, I’m an independent these days, new to Earth to be honest. I came up through the business out in the Colonies, and already have some good contacts here on Earth who has moved some business my way.” She replied, and then hesitated, reaching into her purse. “Here, never know when knowing somebody from the government might prove useful” she said, eyes dancing a bit as she handed over an old-fashioned business card.
“And here I thought I’d have to ask you for your commcode” he replied, laughing as he glanced at the card then pocketed it. “Isn’t that how it’s supposed to work?”
“Well, you have my business commcode now, Stefan, not my personal one” she replied, chuckling in reply. “So the tradition is intact.”
She stiffened for a moment, glancing down at her belt, and then plucked a small PDA from it, glancing at it and frowning. “Drat…” a sigh, and she looked up, shrugging. “Looks like my vacation is cut short. Nice meeting you, Stefan.” She smiled, looking a bit hassled as she rose to her feet.
“Oh, not at all, here, let me give you my commcode, perhaps we can get together sometime” he replied, rising courteously himself.
“Oh, certainly” she replied, as her beltcomp downloaded the commcode, smiling at Stefan again before turning to leave right as the band settled back to their places and prepared to start playing again. On her way out she glanced their way and nodded, before slipping through the door.
As she left, Stefan looked down at the card, elegant and simple, yet memorable for that very reason. Just a name, Anne Bayerski, a rather intricate trefoil Celtic knot, and the commcode… As he was looking at it, bemusedly manually entering it into his beltcomp, the band started playing.
Jenny, Jenny who can I turn to
You give me something I can hold on to
I know you'll think I'm like the others before
Who saw your name and number on the wall
Jenny I've got your number
I need to make you mine
Jenny don't change your number
8 6 7-5 3 0 9 (8 6 7-5 3 0 9)
8 6 7-5 3 0 9 (8 6 7-5 3 0 9)
Stefan froze in the middle of entering the commcode… then slowly turned to look at the entrance, eyes narrowing, prompting a concerned look from his companions. The commcode was 8675309…
***********************************************************************
The Westwind luxury aircar skimmed through the city, one of millions that floated through the evening shadows under full computer control, tied into the local traffic control system. The windows were tinted almost to solid black, hiding what was inside from view.
It was a slightly older model, to be honest, a few dings and scratchs marred it's finish, but it purred along, perfectly tuned lifters and thrust assembly, with just a hint of a deeper, throatier rumble than was normal for the model, the mark of a customized powerplant, a well customized one. Yet it was all wrapped in a fairly innocuous package, one that would hardly draw a second glance from most.
Inside it was a different story, it still looked like a luxury aircar, but much of the space was now taken up by electronic gear, advanced state-of-the-art scanners and processors, tied into an electronic warfare and surveillance suite that would cause most militaries to swoon. In an aircar designed to hold 8 people comfortably, there was but room for three. Two sat in the front, the 'driver' and passenger, and one was hidden in the back.
Anne sat in the passenger seat, reclining and grinning, while her sister Alicia sat in the driver's seat... and didn't even touch the controls. Not out of any faith in the traffic control system, but because they were completely redundant and currently disabled, the vehicle instead driven from the rear, where Annika sat. All three were identical, perfectly so. Triplets from birth, despite their different skills and focus they still looked absolutely the same.
They were shorter than average, slender, well muscled in a sleek sort of way with long black hair hiding delicately pointed ears. The three were genemods, designed to appear vaguely elven, yet they took care to conceal that from casual view.
Anne was the most outgoing of the three, and tended to be the 'public' face of the sisters, indeed all of their clients thought that she was the only one involved and didn't know of the others, those few clients who even knew she was the one they had hired for... delicate business. When not acting in public, Anne was a highly competent codeslicer, able to jack into a network discretely and work her will on it. Indeed, much of the electronic gear in the car was hers, and the 'primitive' PDA she carried was nothing less than a full up nano-optical multi-processing holonode, tied into her PAN through a 256 tbit encryption wireless commnode. Her beltcomp was likewise state of the art, despite it's bland case identifying it as the most common model of low-end business beltcomp's, hardwired into the same commnode and a top of the line microdirectional lasercomm link. Every last bit of her kit was shielded and concealed, made to look innocuous, even a bit old and tired. Her PAN looked amateurish even to the most intensive scrutiny; unless one knew the encryption algorhythm even the wireless links appeared to primarily be processing spam entries, perhaps getting a bit overwhelmed by it.
Alicia was the spitting image of her sister, right down to the visible gear and clothing, yet she was hardly in Anne's league where electronics were concerned. Instead, she was the muscle of the team, while Anne was the brains, her PDA containing a cloaked needler rather than the holonode. She tended not to carry much more when going in a job, using the needler to procure better gear if needed. Hidden in the car was the rest of her kit, a Walther-Remington Ares-S multi-spectral sniper laser, an old but reliable and deadly HK MP-5MSK, a CeresArms Cobra-P combat shotgun and a Colt Manhunter pistol. Hidden in her hairtie was a length of monofilament wire, perfect for cutting throats in a bind. She moved with a bit more of a predator's grace, and was definitely the quietest of the trio, rarely speaking at all. In many ways she was a predator, feral, deadly, dangerous... and not quite civilized. Oh, she blended in well enough, but people tended to keep their distance from her, knowing without conscious thought that she was a wolf amongst the lambs, yet wasn't hunting them... yet.
Few people had ever seen Annika, and fewer still were still alive to talk about it. She was the driver, skilled and capable of managing the cyberlink through the cars neural interface. But that wasn't her specialty, although she could probably earn a quite good living as a race driver with her skills. Rather she was the most; well, larcenous of the bunch, the infiltrator, the pickpocket, the sneakthief and stalker. She worked with Alicia when they had to service a target, acting as her sister's spotter. Or she'd be the one who slipped the poison into the drink, or sabotaged the aircar so that it exploded in flight. If something physically needed to be stolen, she got the nod.
Traffic was fairly light for the time of day, but nonetheless the sisters kept an alert eye out for any possible tails. It was one thing to tweak the nose of the tiger; it was another to turn your back on him after.
“So he has the card? How long before he checks the number on it, you think?” asked Alicia, relaxed yet focused, peering through the polarized glass of the aircar.
“Not sure, might not right away, but once he finds that old microdot Annika scrounged up he’ll probably at least trace it. Which should put phase one well underway.” Anne replied, shrugging. “Any idea yet on who the Johnson is, or what his angle is? This job is pretty weird.”
“Not much to go on the Johnson, think he’s government himself, and we’re probably in the middle of some bureaucratic game, but not totally certain.” Alicia replied, shrugging as she glanced at the readouts that monitored for any EM emissions from the aircar.
“True, embarrassing AID would probably count for something with government hacks, I guess.” Said Annika from the back, shrugging. “But I could see outside interests too, so not eliminating that. Johnson slipped coverage perfectly when I tried to backtrail him, so he’s a player at least.”
“I noticed, and the commcode trace I tried came up null, nice to be working for a competent one for a change. I got the hack in place, no inds that it’s been spotted, and it should send them for a loop.” Anne continued, chuckling at Alicia who suddenly was blushing just a bit. “Once they find the secured holonode it’ll be a bit dicey making certain that it doesn’t trigger until it’s most appropriate, but we’ve gotten the PAN signature off of the target, so it’ll only do the flip if he’s in range of the passive pickup.”
From the back Annika was giggling, while Alicia continued to blush, the triggered imagery had been made by her, after all. Anne, meanwhile, just looked a bit smug, planting that holonode had been a work of genius, hacking the telecomm system to reroute any comm requests was just in a days work for her, building on work first done centuries earlier by the Dutch resistance. The contents of the holonode, though, that was icing on the cake.
The aircar finally landed at a small, non-descript housing area, lower middle class, where an older luxury aircar like this fit in perfectly. Nobody paid much attention to their neighbor’s here, which worked very well to the sister’s advantage. The first moves had been made, now the game would begin in earnest.
Triple Threat - En Garde
It was dark, except for flashes of bright light stabbing through the air. From the dance floor came the pulsating rhythms of old rock 'n roll favorites, belted out by a popular young cover band. Club 1984 was new, only open for a month, and cashed in on an '80's revival' theme, old style kitsch and glitter adorning the walls, including the tail end of an ancient Chevy sticking out above the bar. The music was loud enough that it easily covered conversations at the booths and tables, forcing people to almost yell to be heard, but the atmosphere was fun and exciting, and the club was popular as could be.
It was also right across the street from a government building, and many of the 'regulars' were employees 'over there', which added more zest and zing to the club, after all, 'over there' was the HQ of the Alliance Intelligence Department... and nothing like having real James Bonds in the club to add spice to the evening.
Stefan Kingsley sat at the bar with a few of his co-workers in the Counter Intel section, relaxing after another long day trying to keep others from doing onto the Alliance what the Alliance regularly tried to do unto them. Shop talk was forbidden, here in Club 1984, so they just relaxed, listened to the music, and drank together. The club was a bit crowded, but most of the patrons were on the dance floor, leaving a few empty stools at the bar.
Stefan glanced up at movement next to him; a lovely if somewhat diminutive lady had sat down, ignoring him for the moment while she flagged down the overworked barkeep. She was dressed quite conservatively, a neat black business dress-suit, like what many bankers and lawyers and such wore, that did nothing to conceal the figure beneath. Stefan nudged one of his coworkers, and then returned to his beer, glancing over from time to time until he caught her eye.
He cleared his throat, smiling easily. "First time I've seen you here, ma'am" he half-shouted over the pounding music.
She started a bit, then smiled back at him, the dim light making it hard to tell if she were blushing or not. "Ahhh, first time I've come" she replied, almost drowned out. She glanced away as the barkeep returned with her drink, then back. "You are a regular I take it?"
"Oh, I come here from time to time. Names Stefan" he replied, holding out one hand.
"Ahhh, pleased to meet you, Stefan, Anne" she replied, smiling brightly before taking a sip of her drink with her free hand. She glanced over her shoulder, in the direction of the AID building, then back at Stefan, much to his amusement.
"Yes, I do work there, no I'm not James Bond" he replied with a chuckle, drawing a laugh from her. There was a brief pause in the music, as the band paused between numbers, laughing and joking with the crowd. Anne shifted a bit on her stool, facing Stefan a bit more directly.
“Oh, how disappointing.” She replied, eyes twinkling with mischief. “I’ve always wanted to meet James Bond and find out how he could stand those awful martinis.”
Stefan laughed, turning as well. “Well, they aren’t that bad, but certainly not my drink of choice. More the beer drinking type, to be honest with you. Mind if I bought you a drink, Anne?”
Anne pretended to consider it, but then nodded “Well, far be it from me to refuse free beer.”
With a chuckle Stefan turned and waved down the barkeep, while his instincts started pinging on him, whatever Anne was, she was a player… but what sort of player was the question. He was one of the top people in counter intelligence precisely because of his instincts, and he was now hearing internal warning bells going off.
“So, Anne, what do you do for a living?” he asked, acting as casual as can be.
She shrugged, taking another drink, “Well, it’s somewhat hard to explain to somebody outside the business, but I’m what you would call a facilitator. A… relationship development specialist, so to speak.” She shrugged, chuckling. “Nothing nearly as glamorous as working across the street, I assure you, I just match clients together to facilitate business relationships.”
He relaxed a bit internally, perhaps that was what was setting off his internal radar. Anybody who worked in that sort of job would have some of the qualities his instincts usually associated with agents. “Oh, I see. What firm, if I may be so bold?” he replied, looking genuinely curious.
“Oh, I’m an independent these days, new to Earth to be honest. I came up through the business out in the Colonies, and already have some good contacts here on Earth who has moved some business my way.” She replied, and then hesitated, reaching into her purse. “Here, never know when knowing somebody from the government might prove useful” she said, eyes dancing a bit as she handed over an old-fashioned business card.
“And here I thought I’d have to ask you for your commcode” he replied, laughing as he glanced at the card then pocketed it. “Isn’t that how it’s supposed to work?”
“Well, you have my business commcode now, Stefan, not my personal one” she replied, chuckling in reply. “So the tradition is intact.”
She stiffened for a moment, glancing down at her belt, and then plucked a small PDA from it, glancing at it and frowning. “Drat…” a sigh, and she looked up, shrugging. “Looks like my vacation is cut short. Nice meeting you, Stefan.” She smiled, looking a bit hassled as she rose to her feet.
“Oh, not at all, here, let me give you my commcode, perhaps we can get together sometime” he replied, rising courteously himself.
“Oh, certainly” she replied, as her beltcomp downloaded the commcode, smiling at Stefan again before turning to leave right as the band settled back to their places and prepared to start playing again. On her way out she glanced their way and nodded, before slipping through the door.
As she left, Stefan looked down at the card, elegant and simple, yet memorable for that very reason. Just a name, Anne Bayerski, a rather intricate trefoil Celtic knot, and the commcode… As he was looking at it, bemusedly manually entering it into his beltcomp, the band started playing.
Jenny, Jenny who can I turn to
You give me something I can hold on to
I know you'll think I'm like the others before
Who saw your name and number on the wall
Jenny I've got your number
I need to make you mine
Jenny don't change your number
8 6 7-5 3 0 9 (8 6 7-5 3 0 9)
8 6 7-5 3 0 9 (8 6 7-5 3 0 9)
Stefan froze in the middle of entering the commcode… then slowly turned to look at the entrance, eyes narrowing, prompting a concerned look from his companions. The commcode was 8675309…
***********************************************************************
The Westwind luxury aircar skimmed through the city, one of millions that floated through the evening shadows under full computer control, tied into the local traffic control system. The windows were tinted almost to solid black, hiding what was inside from view.
It was a slightly older model, to be honest, a few dings and scratchs marred it's finish, but it purred along, perfectly tuned lifters and thrust assembly, with just a hint of a deeper, throatier rumble than was normal for the model, the mark of a customized powerplant, a well customized one. Yet it was all wrapped in a fairly innocuous package, one that would hardly draw a second glance from most.
Inside it was a different story, it still looked like a luxury aircar, but much of the space was now taken up by electronic gear, advanced state-of-the-art scanners and processors, tied into an electronic warfare and surveillance suite that would cause most militaries to swoon. In an aircar designed to hold 8 people comfortably, there was but room for three. Two sat in the front, the 'driver' and passenger, and one was hidden in the back.
Anne sat in the passenger seat, reclining and grinning, while her sister Alicia sat in the driver's seat... and didn't even touch the controls. Not out of any faith in the traffic control system, but because they were completely redundant and currently disabled, the vehicle instead driven from the rear, where Annika sat. All three were identical, perfectly so. Triplets from birth, despite their different skills and focus they still looked absolutely the same.
They were shorter than average, slender, well muscled in a sleek sort of way with long black hair hiding delicately pointed ears. The three were genemods, designed to appear vaguely elven, yet they took care to conceal that from casual view.
Anne was the most outgoing of the three, and tended to be the 'public' face of the sisters, indeed all of their clients thought that she was the only one involved and didn't know of the others, those few clients who even knew she was the one they had hired for... delicate business. When not acting in public, Anne was a highly competent codeslicer, able to jack into a network discretely and work her will on it. Indeed, much of the electronic gear in the car was hers, and the 'primitive' PDA she carried was nothing less than a full up nano-optical multi-processing holonode, tied into her PAN through a 256 tbit encryption wireless commnode. Her beltcomp was likewise state of the art, despite it's bland case identifying it as the most common model of low-end business beltcomp's, hardwired into the same commnode and a top of the line microdirectional lasercomm link. Every last bit of her kit was shielded and concealed, made to look innocuous, even a bit old and tired. Her PAN looked amateurish even to the most intensive scrutiny; unless one knew the encryption algorhythm even the wireless links appeared to primarily be processing spam entries, perhaps getting a bit overwhelmed by it.
Alicia was the spitting image of her sister, right down to the visible gear and clothing, yet she was hardly in Anne's league where electronics were concerned. Instead, she was the muscle of the team, while Anne was the brains, her PDA containing a cloaked needler rather than the holonode. She tended not to carry much more when going in a job, using the needler to procure better gear if needed. Hidden in the car was the rest of her kit, a Walther-Remington Ares-S multi-spectral sniper laser, an old but reliable and deadly HK MP-5MSK, a CeresArms Cobra-P combat shotgun and a Colt Manhunter pistol. Hidden in her hairtie was a length of monofilament wire, perfect for cutting throats in a bind. She moved with a bit more of a predator's grace, and was definitely the quietest of the trio, rarely speaking at all. In many ways she was a predator, feral, deadly, dangerous... and not quite civilized. Oh, she blended in well enough, but people tended to keep their distance from her, knowing without conscious thought that she was a wolf amongst the lambs, yet wasn't hunting them... yet.
Few people had ever seen Annika, and fewer still were still alive to talk about it. She was the driver, skilled and capable of managing the cyberlink through the cars neural interface. But that wasn't her specialty, although she could probably earn a quite good living as a race driver with her skills. Rather she was the most; well, larcenous of the bunch, the infiltrator, the pickpocket, the sneakthief and stalker. She worked with Alicia when they had to service a target, acting as her sister's spotter. Or she'd be the one who slipped the poison into the drink, or sabotaged the aircar so that it exploded in flight. If something physically needed to be stolen, she got the nod.
Traffic was fairly light for the time of day, but nonetheless the sisters kept an alert eye out for any possible tails. It was one thing to tweak the nose of the tiger; it was another to turn your back on him after.
“So he has the card? How long before he checks the number on it, you think?” asked Alicia, relaxed yet focused, peering through the polarized glass of the aircar.
“Not sure, might not right away, but once he finds that old microdot Annika scrounged up he’ll probably at least trace it. Which should put phase one well underway.” Anne replied, shrugging. “Any idea yet on who the Johnson is, or what his angle is? This job is pretty weird.”
“Not much to go on the Johnson, think he’s government himself, and we’re probably in the middle of some bureaucratic game, but not totally certain.” Alicia replied, shrugging as she glanced at the readouts that monitored for any EM emissions from the aircar.
“True, embarrassing AID would probably count for something with government hacks, I guess.” Said Annika from the back, shrugging. “But I could see outside interests too, so not eliminating that. Johnson slipped coverage perfectly when I tried to backtrail him, so he’s a player at least.”
“I noticed, and the commcode trace I tried came up null, nice to be working for a competent one for a change. I got the hack in place, no inds that it’s been spotted, and it should send them for a loop.” Anne continued, chuckling at Alicia who suddenly was blushing just a bit. “Once they find the secured holonode it’ll be a bit dicey making certain that it doesn’t trigger until it’s most appropriate, but we’ve gotten the PAN signature off of the target, so it’ll only do the flip if he’s in range of the passive pickup.”
From the back Annika was giggling, while Alicia continued to blush, the triggered imagery had been made by her, after all. Anne, meanwhile, just looked a bit smug, planting that holonode had been a work of genius, hacking the telecomm system to reroute any comm requests was just in a days work for her, building on work first done centuries earlier by the Dutch resistance. The contents of the holonode, though, that was icing on the cake.
The aircar finally landed at a small, non-descript housing area, lower middle class, where an older luxury aircar like this fit in perfectly. Nobody paid much attention to their neighbor’s here, which worked very well to the sister’s advantage. The first moves had been made, now the game would begin in earnest.