Part Ten: I'll whisk them up in no moonlight.
In the blue room at 27A, Omni was watching Gary type. It was the first time in weeks that they'd been alone together in the flat.
"What are you doing?" she asked. He glanced up at her.
"Chasing a ghost, I think. Oh, and setting myself a thesis topic for when...if...any of this ever gets normal again. I'm sorry, I'd forgotten you were still here. Do you need to get home? I've got the Suzuki parked round the back and a spare crash helmet..."
"It's fine," said Omni, "I was going to tidy up a bit before Sasha gets back."
"That may be quite a while," sighed Gary, leaning back from the laptop. "Hans seems to think they're all going on a destiny special today, which is why I'm stuck with the Cade intrusion brief." He laughed. "A ghost chasing a more experienced ghost in and out of a defective haunted house. That's not a thesis topic, it's a fucking Hollywood 'B' movie."
Omni pulled up Hans' chair and joined him at the makeshift desk.
"I'm not going to pretend I understand what's going on right now, Gary, but consider this me taking an interest. I know you and Hans have made Sasha a fuckload of money lately."
Gary nodded.
"Just shy of a quarter of a million, give or take, in nine days. But this is different. You saw the video. This is something else. It's a challenge, and I'm not sure anyone really gets it, y'know?"
Omni reached out, almost making contact with Gary's thigh, but then held back.
"I get it, Gary. To an extent you would hardly believe. Do you know how many North Koreans there are in London right now? Fewer than fifty. Sasha took me in, like she takes in anyone who intrigues or surprises her, but in the months I've known her I've never seen her this...distracted. Mick's really put a cat in her pigeon coop."
"Well," said Gary, "She has a bit of history with Mick Routledge, that's for sure. You remember Gomez from that trade fair we crashed in April? He put me straight on a few details about them, and yeah, they had a pretty serious relationship going for a while there. It kinda makes sense he'd bring her this, especially given her connections, but...you were right last night. It's the levels beyond the subtext. And that's all encoded in the data, which is pretty damned awesome."
Omni broke the final barrier, and gripped Gary's thigh.
"Tell me about the ghost," she said, leaning towards him conspiratorially.
Gary stared at her, both flattered and astonished.
"Phylos Cade. Kind of a legend. Seems he followed-up Hans' intrusion at AktionHive with his own, but masked his entry point as something internal. But then he blew it by adding his initials to the IP code. I've tracerouted it, and it's total bullshit, so bonus points to him for sheer...chutzpah, I guess. But there's something else."
Omni was fishing in her pocket for something.
"Go on,"
"Well, I can't confirm it yet, but I think Cade's hit AktionHive's servers with a Zero Day exploit. I mean, a really clever one. Just not sure what it's supposed to do. The code's..."
Omni shoved the hypodermic into his leg and pushed home the plunger.
"What the fuck?"
"Sleep well," she said, "I think you've earned it." She pulled the keys out of his pocket and left him spinning in his chair. Four and a half minutes later, she was donning a crash helmet and composing a text message as she started Gary's Suzuki.
To be continued...
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