CHAPTER 8: LIES AND SPIES
The smell of coffee filled the food commons in the morning. Shadowjack had just woke up to his daily routine and was just about to pour himself some coffee. He couldn’t shake the feeling that something was off in the station. All the new recruits that had merged since $IN and FU joined forces had disrupted the smooth flow of FUs established routine but they were managing. Shadowjack did his due diligence to meet each recruit and make a report to bring back to the officers of FU. There was something unusual going on and he couldn’t quite put his finger on it. And when Shadowjack wanted to get the bottom of things – he did just that.
He placed down his coffee as he read his tablet for the galactic news. He rolled his eyes as he read one of the first headlines.
WARFISH: THE ROUGE FU PLAYER
He hated how media could spin the truth so easily. He sipped the rest of his coffee and he returned to his quarters to suit up for his daily mining missions. He walked out of the food commons and down the hallway passing a few of the new $IN recruits. He caught the eye of one of them who looked unfamiliar. They turned their head down instantly. He continued walking as he turned his head to look back. He opened his wrist gear and wrote himself an electronic note to follow up with one of the members he had passed. He got to the loading dock and began to form his fleets for a team legion.
His fleets shot out the station and he began to raid the covenant nearby to his station. Shadowjack was FU’s loudmouth but he doubled as an incredible engineer. He had created many designs for the team to help with alliance development and he was always tinkering with something new. His fleets spread across the galaxy and raiding every single covenant fleet he could scope. He obliterated all covenant that stood in his way.
He checked his transmissions and saw a message requiring him to dock his fleets and return to the main station. There was a last meeting to be held with the officers of FU.
He landed his fleets in and rushed to the meeting with great haste. He walked in the officers meeting room and saw that everyone was on edge.
“Shadow! Can you believe what they are saying about me on the public networks?” Warfish seemed mildly irritated. “They say I am trying to ruin the whole galaxy with provocative actions!” She spoke quickly but she looked at him with concern.
“Well I think you are kind of asking for it. This whole training bullshit is a bad idea Fish. You ask me? I think we should just nuke em or keep em. No gray area” Shadowjack openly disagreed in front of the officers – but there was a feeling of empathy for Warfish. He knew she had good intentions…despite her “unconventional” methods.
“Listen…I swear! They knew we were coming guys. We sped in fast…as ALWAYS!” Warfish seemed a bit on edge. “I’m just saying – we need to review our members. The new ones…”
“I’m on it” Shadowjack said matter of factly. He looked at the other officers then back to Warfish as he nodded his head. “Well I got other important shit to do other than talk about Fish’s raids. I’ll see you I the food commons later”. Shadowjack abruptly left the room. He found Fish to be a bit reckless, but she had a point.
He went back to his station quarters. He opened his closet then moved aside a large coat to reveal a keypad. He entered a code and the door lifted into a secret room. There inside was a hackers dream set with monitors and computer gear everywhere. He had great machines and tools set up one side where he could build unique weapons that he would create for the FU team in his spare time. He sat in his chair and gave voice command.
“Adriana, open command desk file. Passcode 8-0-0-8-1-3-5.”
A sultry robotic AI voice responded.
“Yes daddy. Opening command desk file. How was your day daddy? Would you like a back massage?”
A holographic modelsic looking female projected behind Shadowjacks chair and two robotic hands exited his chair and gently began to rub his shoulders.
“Not right now sweetheart. I need to run face detection for the past week in 3 locations of the station. Can you run a scan on the entertainment commons, the food commons and the loading dock? I’m uploading a file now for a cross reference. And Adriana, keep this between us”
“Running private scans now. Video file estimated to finalize in 3 hours”
Perfect, by the time he was done his dinner he would be able to review the footage. He exited the secret computer lab biting his nails. He headed towards the food commons. He always lost track of time in his lab but fortunately he had kept his visit with Adriana brief.
He went into the food commons where he started look at the faces of all members from $IN. They were eating as they watched the great galactic news network.
*Another fucking headline* He thought to himself as he saw Warfishes name blasted all over the screen.
WARFISHES AGGRESION WILL BE MET WITH FULL RETALTION! WE WILL NOT STAND DOWN. WE HAVE DECIDED TO UNITE WITH $FC AND WE ARE ONE TEAM!
BU and $FC were merging. It was time they had another meeting to discuss how to handle the provocation that Warfish had incited. Shadowjack called for an emergency meeting for the following day around noon in the officers room where they would discuss how they would proceed. He sat alone and quickly ate. When he arrived back to this quarters, he entered his lab.
“Adriana, what do you have for me?”
“Good evening Shadowjack. I ran the scans on crossed databases for the files of footage you requested. I detected 1 unusual transmission sent from the entertainment commons prior to the given parameters you uploaded. Commencing playbacks for your reference”
Shadow surveyed the footage. He saw Warfish, Blazing11 and Daredavil having their redrum then exiting the room. He rewound the footage. He made a note of every face he saw in the entertainment commons but didn’t see anything concrete. He saw the glare of the clock beam in his eyes. He fixed his glasses.
“Daddy, it is 3:42. I see you have a meeting scheduled for 11:00 with the officers. Perhaps you should get some sleep.”
“Yea…maybe you’re right.” He exited the room and headed for bed. He closed his eyes as he thought of uploading a new holographic outfit for Adriana.
*She’d look amazing in red*