INTERLUDE
Who Can It Be Now?
It wasn’t enough for the universe to throw me one curve ball out of left field. It had to throw me two.
For some reason, gods only know why, I kept my Twitter account active and open on a little tiny terminal to the side. Nostalgia maybe. Thinking about that time before we set up Overwatch and the only way outside of using ECHO comms to talk to Red Djinni was by Twitter, of all damn things. I sure as hell didn’t want to use it to tweet the cheery crap Spin used to ask me to. Not that we were in any position to tweet anything cheery at this point. Except maybe, “Guess what! No one died today!”
So I was kind of startled when the speakers did that raspberry I’d substituted for the chirpy little sound Twitter used to give me the alert for a private message. The hell, Red? I thought, and swiveled a little to peer at the monitor.
Who is @rancbeast42? And how did he get past my “friends-only PMs” block?
The avatar was simple enough—a stark, black depiction of the two heads of Janus against a white background. Janus, the Roman god of beginnings and endings, of portals and transitions. The message, though—it was ambiguous.
It screamed Red.
@rancbeast42: Time is not on our side.
I tweeted back.
@victoriavictrix: Red, this is no time to get playful. I know I’m late for practice.
@victoriavictrix: I’m juggling a couple knives and a chainsaw right now.
It had to be Red. And he knew I could mute him on Overwatch Two, so he figured he’d get my attention this way.
@rancbeast42: Not Red. Just someone reaching out, someone with intel.
I began dropping mental f-bombs. Then I relaxed. This was on Twitter. This was meaningless. Some hacker had figured out how to send me PMs, so what? He might have something useful. It wouldn’t hurt to play along.
@victoriavictrix: I’m listening. So talk.
And whoever it was…did.
My Twitter feed came alive with links, each loaded with precious data. A little I couldn’t use, a lot that I could. Suddenly, I was overwhelmed with suggestions for safe ports, embassies, entire districts and trustworthy research labs for my population of Metisian scientists, each complete with protocols and contacts for acquiring safe haven. Something I had been putting a lot of skull sweat into at that very moment. There were detailed maps, revealing hot spots for Thulian strike teams, calculated patterns predicting times and places they would likely strike next. There were even charted movements of their ambush avenues, maneuvers and escape formations. And finally, a detailed list of companies and their recent activities, investitures, breakdowns…and one clear foreword…“Shell companies of Dominic Verdigris III.”
@rancbeast42: That get your attention?
It was a good thing all those PMs had taken a while to produce, because at least I had time to check some of them out, get my jaw up off the floor, and stop panting and actually reply.
@victoriavictrix: Indeed, Daniel Jackson. Thankew. Thankew verra much.
@rancbeast42: This is what I do. These are things I find and figure out. Way more than I can deal with right now.
@victoriavictrix: What’s the catch?
Because I couldn’t let him/her/it know just yet that I was practically whooping the more links I opened and the more info I grabbed. And no one is ever this helpful unless they want something.
@rancbeast42: No catch. It’s information that should be used, by people I trust. Still not convinced? Try this.
I received one final link, a link to a short page of text that detailed a rather repugnant fairy tale of one fifteenth century Italian girl decimating her entire family in her thirst for fiendish power. It sounded strangely familiar, but the tone was odd, the style rather simple. Whoever the writer was, they weren’t very good.
@victoriavictrix: If you’re pitching a story, this one’s been done. And you need some practice with your prose.
@rancbeast42: Sorry, not all of us are pros. What if I told you this was something I gleaned from a mutual enemy of ours?
@victoriavictrix: Gleaned? You mean, this is an actual memory of someone’s?
@rancbeast42: Of a fair-haired she-devil we both know and loathe.
Of course. It all came together and just like that, because of what my family has done since the Etruscans, I knew what Harmony was. Or, at least, I had a pretty good set of clues, and I knew just how to verify it.
@rancbeast42: Not sure what to make of it myself, but I figure you might know what it means. Helpful?
@victoriavictrix: Oh yes. Very. Thank you again.
@rancbeast42: More will come, as I get it. And you’re welcome.
The feed went quiet then. I uplinked the Metis stuff to Bella, the Thulian stuff to Bull and Pride, and the Verd stuff to Ramona, who had the best head for that sort of thing. And then I went out to get my ass handed to me by Red and Mel. But not because I couldn’t keep up.
Because my head was still buzzing. Who was this guy? And why me?