Chapter 8

Elara felt naked despite being clothed. She was used to sensing a weave of moonbeams providing her priestess’s attire. Now she wore loose, coarse jeans and a scratchy woolen shirt like that of a laborer but at least had a silky-smooth camisole underneath and shoes that fit. She had her own tan jacket to keep away the chill, and a ‘baseball cap’ to cover her head. The clothes were a step up from the hand-me-downs Finn had found in his closet but were not things she looked forward to donning. The absence of that subtle caress of magic made her nervous and self-conscious.

At least the food smelled good, she thought. The busy ‘diner’ Finn took her to was filled with polished stone and metal. A long counter dominated the room and a woman in a plain uniform bustled back and forth behind it, serving the patrons with practiced ease.

They were in a booth, not by the window, but close enough to have plenty of daylight. Finn had ordered for her, and she marveled at the pile of eggs, potatoes, and toast on her plate. She had never been served such a large meal before.

“Dig in,” Finn said as he attacked his plate. “We’ve got a busy day ahead of us.” Despite his words, he paused on the first bite of his food. He closed his eyes, savoring the flavors and chewing slowly. Then he nodded and took another bite. She found his actions curious.

“Oh? Will we find the man I need today?” Elara asked as she mimicked his use of the knife and fork. She was used to the much simpler eating sticks of her home.

Finn shook his head, frowning. “No, but we’ll get a sense of whom you should be looking at or for. I need to deliver things to Amy. She’s a reporter. She has years following the political folks and business trends and will know who has power as well as who buys that power. I wouldn’t be surprised if my targets are some people she’ll suggest.”

Elara thought about his words. “You mean the most powerful might be evil?”

“Highly likely,” Finn replied as he stabbed several of the fried potatoes and dragged them around the yolk of his eggs.

“But I would rather not find an evil man,” she protested, even though she could feel the geas did not care if the person was good or evil.

Finn shrugged. “It might be a woman,” he said. “My experience is that power corrupts. People who seek power are susceptible to abusing that power as well.”

Elara could sense the truth in his words. The mage who had used her had great power, and obviously abused it based on what she had seen and felt. Mother Nightbloom had power and was not evil, she thought, but even as she thought it, she knew her mentor’s power was far less than the wizard’s had been. She set the fork down on her plate, suddenly not hungry.

“How am I going to bind someone that powerful to me and return him to Elysia?” she asked herself softly. She shuddered at the thought of using her body to entice a person of evil. What power would she have to compel them?

“Hey,” Finn said a moment later, interrupting the dark thought racing through her mind. “I find it helps to focus on one step at a time. Don’t tackle problems you might not have. Amy may tell us these bastards aren’t the most powerful. Maybe we’ll figure out how to break this spell on you. Let’s just focus on what we need to accomplish today, okay?”

His eyes were kind, she thought. She hoped he was right.

“When will we meet this, Amy?” She managed to ask after taking a small bite of food.

Finn glanced at the oblong device; the phone he had called it. “About an hour from now,” he said. “She’s started her journey.”

“How do you know?” Elara asked.

Finn gave her a crooked smile. “I’m very good at my job. My messages to her have included more than she would know. I’ve triggered the backdoor on her phone and set it to send me location updates. I know where she thinks she’s going and can track her progress toward that goal. We’ll intercept her and go to where we can have a private chat. If anyone has cracked her messages, they’ll watch where they think she is going. She won’t ever be there.”

Finn watched the crowd ebb and flow, glancing at his phone and waiting for the small blue dot on his screen to materialize into the person he was expecting. The plaza was always busy. It was a major pedestrian transit point due to some idiot’s poor planning. Two subway stations were a block apart, with no connection except to go up to the street and cross this plaza only to re-enter the underground stations. Their poor planning was his opportunity. Thankfully, it was not raining or otherwise miserable outside.

Finn considered Elara sitting a short distance away, sipping a cup of tea he had purchased for her with clear instructions. Stay at the small table, sip, but don’t finish the tea, watch the crowds but don’t stare at anyone, and rise and follow him when he meets Amy. Hopefully, she would be able to do that much in what was obviously a strange world for her.

The fact that she could understand his speech, but not read the menu at the diner, made him think some sort of quantum effect was at play. She had admitted to being able to sense his moods. Maybe it was some sort of verbal telepathy.

He shook his head. She wasn’t crazy, he had decided. Her trick with the clothes had convinced him of that much. Reading about magic in some fantastical piece of fiction was one thing; seeing it up close was another. Finn’s detail-oriented brain thought through the ramifications and possibilities. If she was from another dimension, he had some scientific basis for understanding. With time and resources, he could figure out a way to get her home. He was confident of that. It might even give him a chance to escape anyone hunting him.

“Set that aside for later,” he thought. He considered the compulsion on her while he waited. “Possibly, it’s some sort of signal,” he muttered. “A Faraday cage to interrupt the signal?” It would work if it was an electronic signal. If it were quantum-based, he’d have to take a different approach. The good news was that he could test to see if it was electronic.

He had given his word to help her. She assumed it was helping to find someone powerful enough to complete her quest. He knew that power went hand-in-glove with corruption and evil. He was not about to help her control some evil bastard just to help someone worse in her world. Finn had dreamed about that scenario. No, he needed to help her defeat her compulsion and be free of the magician trying to control her. The question of how remained.

Amy Sterling emerging from the stairs of the subway station interrupted that train of thought.

Finn glanced at his phone, confirming there was no active surveillance running nearby. He knew if the government was following her, they would be in contact with one another. That would expose them to his phone’s searching as well. He also knew there was always the possibility of passive tails on her, so scanned the crowd for any signs of pursuit.

Amy passed between his position and Elara’s table. Her sharp jawline was set in a determined expression, and she kept her eyes on the opposite side of the plaza, as if anxious to make it to the next train. Finn rose to walk parallel to her path. Amy had striking features framed by a mop of curly chestnut brown hair that refused to be tamed, and piercing blue eyes held an intensity that belied her age. A medium-height, lean figure, she carried herself with the quiet confidence borne from years of experience and a deep sense of determination.

Finn had met her twice in person before. Each time, saying little and passing along information and tips. He had never asked her for a favor or tried to coach her on how to present the information he had uncovered. This meeting would be different.

She did not know she was meeting him, per-se. He used a new, different alias for this contact. He had built up his virtual credibility with breadcrumbs from his investigation, giving her the clues needed to follow the path he had already traversed. Today would be different. It was time to show her most, if not all, his cards. The proof could be verified, but that would require exposing some of his methods, and that would increase the risk to him.

Only a handful of people were supposed to know about his work, embedding mutable microcode in the chips of the world’s phones. The agency would immediately start tracing everyone who knew of his hack. It would not take them long to single him out. Once they had a last known name and location, they would bring everything they could to the hunt. It would no longer be a search for a nuisance hacker; it would be a manhunt for a traitor.

“Maybe a quantum tunnel to a magical dimension is what I need,” he thought as he closed on Amy.

He approached from her left, pretending to be jostled into her. As she looked at him confused, he cupped her elbow and leaned close enough to whisper, “Let’s take a detour to have a little talk.”

Her eyes went wide. It was the pass phrase she was supposed to use to identify herself to him at the meet-up. If it was possible, her eyes grew even wider as she recognized his face.

“You!”

Finn smiled, hoping it conveyed some boyish Irish charm. “Let’s head this way.”

He guided her toward an alley. A fire door was blocked open just a bit. Elara met them just as he reached it. Amy glanced at the other woman and then set her jaw with a nod to Finn to lead on.

“How did you get this?” Amy asked as she sat on a toolbox opposite Finn in the middle of a bare room. Exposed studs and temporary windows were hidden behind plastic draped scaffolding and an un-boxed chandelier rested in one corner waiting to be hoisted to the freshly painted ceiling high above them. Elara sat on a crate with her arms crossed, her brow knit tightly as she watched from one side.

“That’s part of the story,” Finn admitted. “It’s a part that will get me killed if it comes out.”

Elara was startled, as if surprised by this news.

“What do you mean?” Amy asked.

“I helped them create the system they are now abusing,” Finn admitted after a long moment, searching Amy’s eyes. “If they realize how I got this info, they will know it can only be from a handful of people. Most of those people still work at the agency. So far as I know, all the others are still there.”

“And they’ll kill you to keep this secret?” Amy asked.

Finn nodded. “What do you think would happen if everyone in the world found out that their phones could be turned into a remote listening device, or triggered to send their location to the government? Look at what they are doing with this technology under the guise of protecting us all.”

He pointed to one of the pages he had printed for her. “This is what they would kill me for.”

Amy studied the page. It was filled with arcane symbols and strange little diagrams. Elara would have assumed it was a spell. Finn called it quantum mathematics.

“How much math do you know?” Finn asked.

“Not enough to decipher this,” Amy said with a snort.

“In mathematical terms, this is a theorem. My master’s thesis outlined parts of this paper as an approach to prove mathematically how quantum entangled electron pairs of certain properties are the same electron, not a pairing.”

Amy looked at him and raised an eyebrow. “Try again,” she said.

“If the two electrons are identical, not just coupled, you can manipulate one over here,” he raised his left hand and wiggled his fingers. “And the same thing happens over here.” He raised his other hand and wiggled it.

“Ok. So?”

“What if this electron,” he wiggled his left hand. “Is separated from its counterpart by say a firewall, or an encryption protocol?”

Amy stared at him for a moment. “Why would they kill you for math?”

“Because that is how they break the systems. No system with the chips I helped create is safe or secure.”

She shrugged. “There have been other surveillance scandals. I don’t think they would kill you for showing what they can do.”

Finn shook his head. “You don’t understand. They practically gave away the chips. They aren’t just in phones. Not only that, but they are in every router and switch in the networks of the world. Every computer people have bought in the past ten years likely has them. They were clandestinely smuggled to other nations on purpose, so they are in every government of the world. If someone was given the circuit models and copied them, they can be compromised. With this capability, there are no secrets left except the ones they want to keep.”