Chapter 164

  Alexander stepped out of the stairwell from Jasmine Sharp’s office.

  The smell from the restaurant had nagged him the whole time he was meeting with the lawyer. It was almost overpowering standing right next to it. Garlic and ginger, sesame oil and soy sauce. The mixture of umami and spicy carried him through an immediate U-turn.

  The open-front restaurant had a narrow walkway with one row of two-seater booths along the wall. Steam rose from the kitchen behind the counter on the opposite wall, where an elderly woman worked over multiple pots and woks simultaneously. She couldn’t have been more than five feet tall, but she commanded the kitchen staff with a soup ladle like a general directing troops.

  Alexander slid into the nearest booth.

  The woman appeared beside his table almost instantly, ladle in hand. She rattled off something in rapid Mandarin.

  He glanced up at the menu board above the counter. Years of steam and cooking had left the letters faded and hard to read. “Uh... I’ll have...”

  “You have baozi.” She nodded sharply. “Congee.” Another nod. “Youtiao.” A third nod, each punctuating her words like a whip crack.

  Alexander stared at her.

  “Actually—”

  “No. You sit. Eat.” She pointed the ladle at him. “Too skinny.”

  He gave up. “Yeah, sure. Throw in some dim sum and oolong tea as well, please.”

  The woman’s face split into a smile, revealing several missing teeth. “Yes, yes. Good boy. Eat much. My daughters make.” She disappeared back into the kitchen, shouting orders at the two other ladies working the stovetops.

  Alexander leaned back against the worn vinyl of the booth and let himself relax fully for the first time since arriving in New York. The restaurant’s warmth seeped into him, carrying the promise of authentic Chinese food.

  Augustus’s cooking was incredible. He had no complaints, even if he were the sort of man rude enough to complain about having someone who cooked for them every day.

  But Alexander had a special place in his heart and mind for Chinese restaurants and takeaway food. His parents had met and fallen in love over Chinese food, and many of his favorite childhood memories included Chinese takeaway and movies at home with both of them.

  Melancholy washed over him again. He wondered what his parents would think of him. What he’d survived. Achieved. The family and friends he’d found. If they’d care about the murders and other crimes committed along the way, or trust implicitly that his reasons warranted such acts.

  The tea arrived first. He poured himself a cup and took a sip, letting the heat settle in his chest.

  Thinking about it, Chinese food had been his last meal the night before his fateful meeting with a train.

  And the last time he’d had it… Alexander frowned, thinking hard. Then he smiled, recalling he and Annie sitting cross-legged on the floor of Frank’s workshop all those months earlier. The old man perched on a stool behind Annie, stitching her wounds.

  His thoughts turned to the grumpy old man. They hadn’t spoken in a long time. Guilt tugged at him, but he pushed it away. It wasn’t just that the man was safer without him dropping in or checking on him regularly. He’d also been genuinely busy. Fighting Santiago Systems. Rescuing aliens. Advancing his powers. Space travel punctuated by interdimensional travel. Or multiversal.

  Alexander wasn’t really certain of the correct terminology for what they were dealing with. Maybe he’d look it up sometime. No doubt there were scientists and self-proclaimed experts on talk shows vomiting absolute certainty about what was going on. He’d eat his arm if there weren’t at least one. Or a dozen.

  He made a mental note to check in on Frank soon.

  Then shifted his focus to the work ahead. He had four major objectives while in the city.

  The kids with powers were a priority. He needed to make them an offer of some kind. A way forward. If he didn’t, someone would. And though he wasn’t a betting man, he put good odds on any other offer they received coming with unpleasant strings attached. They might call themselves a gang, but New York was full of real gangs. Hardened criminals and supervillains.

  Not to mention superheroes who would shoot first and ask questions never.

  His second task involved a little window-shopping. Something he would find time for today. Hoverbikes and whatever else caught his eye.

  Alexander took another sip, angling the cup to hide the smile trying to force its way onto his face. Talia might have expected him to pick up a single bike, but if he was going to do a little borrowing while in town, Alexander intended to make it… memorable.

  Which meant he had to put together a shopping list first. Executing the borrowing would come after his other priorities were dealt with.

  Third, but operationally the most important to Grimnir, was recruiting Jasmine Sharp. She hadn’t outright rejected the proposal, but he knew the offer warred with her own ideals. That’s why he’d thrown in the offer to fund an assistant at the last minute.

  He had to admit he wasn’t the best negotiator. Augustus or Talia likely would have had a better plan going into it about the offer itself.

  But Alexander had a feeling she needed more than details on paper. She needed to know who she’d be working for.

  To know that she didn’t have to give away who she was or give up what she cared about.

  And then there was the surveillance malware recording everything in her office. She’d somehow pieced together that she was being targeted. Perhaps she’d lost clients or cases in ways she’d narrowed down to requiring privileged information. Either way, the woman lived up to her name. Her solution underscored a tactical mind.

  If you spot this narrative on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation.

  She’d just underestimated her enemy’s willingness to cross the line. Or perhaps their capabilities.

  The surveillance was the immediate priority. Even if he wasn’t trying to recruit her to Grimnir’s cause, he’d never pass up an opportunity that might paint AEGIS in an unflattering light.

  Even if it were still an assumption that they were behind it.

  Which is why he needed to convert what he’d found into evidence. The malware would upload at midnight, which gave him time. But the software was professional, both in its design and in how it had hidden through injecting itself into existing operating system functions.

  Anyone short of an expert intentionally looking for it would have missed it. Unfortunately for the hacker, Alexander didn’t need to put that much effort into it. The tablet itself had been all too happy to warn him it was spying.

  He could kill the app and its injected threads easily enough. Reach in, find the process, and terminate it with a thought. Simple.

  But that wasted the opportunity.

  The food began to arrive. Steaming baozi in a bamboo basket. A bowl of congee with century eggs and pork. Golden youtiao glistening with oil. Small plates of dim sum. The granny set everything down quickly and vanished again, barking out rapid orders to her daughters.

  Alexander picked up his chopsticks and took a bite.

  The flavor hit exactly right. He’d missed this.

  While he ate, he considered his options. Alexander had plenty of experience working with code, modifying existing codebases mostly, throughout his years working at Frank’s. He also had no issues patching together open-source code and changing it to meet his needs.

  And of course, Technopathy allowed him to interface with computers and bypass the need entirely by telling the machine what he wanted. They were all too eager to do whatever he needed… but they weren’t intelligent. Or capable of writing code on his behalf.

  It all still leaned heavily on his actual knowledge. When he knew what he wanted, convincing the computer to cooperate was simple.

  And if the tablet connected or transmitted directly to his target, he could just ride that signal with Technopathy.

  Alexander was certain that the recordings wouldn’t be delivered directly to the hacker.

  Which meant he needed someone with the expertise to create a payload that could piggyback off the recordings when they were uploaded at midnight, trace back to the source, and perhaps even gather the evidence he needed without being detected.

  Alexander swallowed, pulled up the System interface, and called Talia.

  Talia’s voice came through clear. “What have you done now?”

  “What is that supposed to mean?” he subvocalized, conscious of the restaurant slowly filling with morning clientele. “I didn’t do anything!”

  “So you’re not calling because you stumbled into some fresh problem, or because you’re getting yourself into a dangerous situation and need my help to sort it out?”

  Alexander froze for a few heartbeats. “Well, I mean… when you put it like that…”

  Talia said nothing, but he could imagine the raised eyebrow and judging look.

  Alexander cleared his throat. “I met with Jasmine and made her an offer. I’m giving her a day or two to think it over, but while I was there, I noticed her tablet has illegal surveillance software on it.”

  “AEGIS?”

  He took a sip. “That’s my guess, but I can’t prove it.”

  Talia sighed. “You want my help to prove it.”

  He squinted. “Yeeeees?”

  “Alex, New York has one of the biggest presences of superhero guilds in the world,” Talia said patiently, as if she were lecturing a child. “Correspondingly, the AEGIS branch operating out of New York is one of the biggest in the world, too.”

  Alexander shrugged. “Makes sense.”

  “So I’m not helping you pick a fight with AEGIS while you’re alone in New York.” Talia said firmly.

  Alexander frowned. “Why does everyone think I’m looking for a fight? I’ve been on my best behavior!”

  Talia’s tone dropped dangerously. “Then why am I just now seeing that Gravimax reported a sighting of the Machine God in Brooklyn?”

  He paused. “How? I evaded him cleanly. Wiped all the cameras. He was never close enough to make out who I was.”

  That gave Talia pause. They both fell into an awkward silence for a long moment.

  “Gravity manipulation,” Talia muttered, clearly deep in thought. “Perhaps he can create distortions that bend light to see further.”

  “What? No fucking way,” Alexander argued. “I don’t even need to do the math to know that would require the gravitational equivalent of a planet or more to create telescopic lensing.”

  “Not if it was a technique.”

  “Shit.” Alexander considered that. “You think he’d waste a slot on something a pair of binoculars could achieve?”

  Talia laughed. “I’m tempted to say yes after seeing what he looks like, but I know he’s smarter than that. Maybe it’s a technique that gives more than just enhanced sight.”

  “I’m being careful. Honest.”

  Talia sighed. “I believe you. But Annie and Augustus have both been in here several times wanting updates, and they keep interrupting my work. We’d all feel better if you had backup.”

  Alexander smiled at the image of Annie and Augustus harassing Talia. “I know, but you all have your own tasks. Speaking of…”

  “Right. You need a way to track where the recordings are going.” Talia paused. “And if it turns out they are going back to AEGIS’s New York headquarters, you’re going to quit this pursuit.”

  “Absolutely. Scout’s honor.”

  “I know you weren’t a Scout, Alex,” Talia said. “But I also know you won’t go back on your word, so I’m going to move past your dumb joke. I need some details.”

  “Shoot.” Alexander spooned some food into his mouth.

  “What am I working with? Device model and OS?”

  Glancing up at the ceiling, he reached out with Technopathy. The tablet was still in Jasmine’s office, one floor above and maybe thirty feet away. He slipped into its systems.

  “Shamsin 13, running SimpleTab 3.2,” Alexander muttered around his food.

  “Don’t talk with your mouth full,” Talia murmured. “Is the app compiled or scripted? What language?”

  He swallowed, sinking deeper into the device, finding the app, feeling its architecture. “Compiled binary. Written in Stellar. It’s professional work.”

  “Someone put real resources into it, that’s for sure. MAC address and IP of the tablet?”

  Alexander rattled them off.

  “Destination address?”

  That required more work. He set down his chopsticks and focused. Technopathy spread through the tablet’s network activity, tracking packets as they moved. The app pinged home every few minutes, tiny bursts of data checking in.

  He pulled the IP and read it to her.

  “It’s a relay address,” Talia said. “As expected. I can trace it backward once I’m in. Upload schedule is midnight Eastern?”

  “Yeah. It maintains the recordings locally until then.”

  “You’ll need to deliver the payload to the tablet physically if I can’t find a way in.”

  He dipped youtiao into his congee. “That’s fine. I’m going to scramble the audio files at the end of the day anyway. Make them all white noise. Don’t want anyone to know what I discussed with Jasmine.” He chewed thoughtfully. “I’ll mess up the other recordings too.”

  “Good idea. I’ll get back to you in a few hours when it’s ready.”

  “Thanks, Talia,” Alexander said. “Appreciate the assist.”

  “Anything else?” Talia asked, already distracted. Focused on the task.

  “That’s it for now.”

  She cut the call.

  Alexander returned his attention to the food. The baozi had cooled slightly, but the congee was still hot. He ate steadily, working through the dim sum while his mind turned to the next items on his list.

  Window shopping.

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