Winds of Magic Chapter 12

 

Chapter 12

I returned to the student council room. Illya was waiting for me.

“So what did you find out?” she said.

“Brilliance is actually kind of fun,” I said. “But yeah. They’re who we think they are. I think I also found Tally.”

“They just let you in?” said Illya.

“Their security didn’t seem as strong as we thought it would be,” I said. “I think they have a sponsor who is pulling off all of the major stunts.”

“Did you find any way we can leverage our assets to investigate this club?” asked Illya.

I shook my head. “At best they’re underlings working beneath an invisible figure to carry out his will. If we end up catching them then the master will simply hide the evidence and hire new underlings.”

“What do you suggest we do?” said Illya. “Rei has proposed that we perform a surprise inspection, but since the club has been scrubbed from our records it’s not under our jurisdiction anymore.”

“How about we go to the police?” I said.

“They wouldn’t believe us, and even if they did they wouldn’t do anything. It’s too conspiratorial. We need some solid proof.”

“I was there,” I said. “I saw the magic circle. Isn’t that proof enough?”

“We need something like a confession or an artifact that points directly to their schemes,” said Illya.

“I have a bit of rapport with them,” I said. “I declined their invitation to join their club, but if I acted as if I changed my mind I could infiltrate them.”

“No,” said Illya. “Infiltration should be left to the professionals. I think I need to contact my uncle to see what he thinks about all this.” Illya took out her phone and dialed a number. “Uncle? Yes, yes. I think we have some information about Forthier’s Club and their schemes. Flash drive? Yes, of course. Oh, yes, you can tell us when you get here. See you then. Bye.” She hung up. “My uncle will be here in an hour. Do you have time? There’s some mundane accounting that needs to be done.”

“I will need time to work as the captain of the curling auxiliary team,” I said.

“I understand,” said Illya. “Tetra has already done most of the heavy lifting for us. She really does know her stuff, which is what I’d expect of the daughter of a magnate.”

“Then why don’t you put her in charge?” I said.

“Tetra does not have the qualities of a leader like you do,” said Illya. “You’re special. I don’t know exactly why I think that way, but I do.”

I spent the rest of the time before Detective Laymon arrived doing calculations and accounting.

An hour after the phone call Detective Laymon arrived in the student council room. He sat down backwards in a chair and sighed.

“Look, Illya,” he said. “I appreciate you calling me to tell me new things, but there’s a process to this.”

“What did you find?” said Illya.

“There’s a shadowy figure behind several of the world’s biggest corporations that is backing clubs like Forthier’s Club all over America. Each one of the clubs has a goal to do a specific thing but, when put together, do more than the sum of their parts.”

“And?” said Illya.

“I’m no longer working on my own,” said Detective Laymon. “The MIB is on the case.”

“Magical Investigatory Board?” said Illya. “Really. So this is a greater conspiracy.”

“Exactly,” said Detective Laymon. “I’m now working with a ton more bureaucracy.” He took out the flash drive I had found at the bottom of the lake. “I’ve sent copies of this everywhere. The thing is, whoever designed this device’s encryption is either a genius or an advanced AI.”

“And we can rule out AI,” I said.

“We can’t, actually,” said Detective Laymon.

“What about the artifage?” I said.

Detective Laymon shook his head. “No. We believe that at least two fully functional AI escaped the artifage—” Detective Laymon’s face went pale.

“Uh, we weren’t supposed to hear that, were we?” said Illya.

Detective Laymon’s forehead beaded with sweat. “Do not tell anyone. Ever. This stays here between us.”

“I won’t put you in jeopardy,” said Illya. “In any case, is it plausible that this escaped AI designed the encryption on the flash drive?”

“I believe that to be true,” said Detective Laymon. “And I believe the creator of the flash drive is looking to create Eden.”

“Eden?” I asked.

“I’m sorry. Eden is the manifestation of magical energy that flows through the phlogiston. If it manifests itself here on Earth, than the availability of magic will greatly increase.”

“Why is that bad?” said Illya.

“It’s bad because it will fundamentally alter the fabric of our society,” said Detective Laymon.

“What does this have to do with Forthier’s Club and Almog?”

“We do not yet know,” said Detective Laymon. He flicked the flash drive. “If we crack this we may learn something new.”

“I know a friend who can help you crack that drive,” I said.

“Who is that?” said Detective Laymon.

“Regius Alnum,” I said. “I know him. I can hand over the drive to him and he can take a crack at it.”

Detective Laymon raised an eyebrow. “How is a kid like you so connected?” he asked.

“Don’t ask,” I said. “It’s just something that happened. Regius Alnum doesn’t like dealing with people he doesn’t know. I’ll have to take the drive back and hand it off to him when I next see him.”

“I trust you,” said Detective Laymon. He handed me the drive. “You were the one who found it first.”

I was, of course, going to analyze the drive myself, being the Regius Alnum who I was referring to. The only reason why I didn’t analyze it when I first had it was, frankly, to keep myself from bearing the brunt of a booby trap. The police and MIB had better facilities for dealing with that kind of stuff.

“Any more information?” said Detective Laymon.

“I managed to infiltrate Forthier’s Club,” I said. “Relatively easily. However, Illya suggested that I not be the one to do any undercover activity. I also found Tally and her sepulcheria.”

“Good,” said Detective Laymon. “That will help our investigation greatly. We do have several young officers who can pass as students and get into the club if you really can infiltrate them like you say you can. I’ll introduce you to an MIB undercover operative and you can work from there.”

Detective Laymon stood up. “I’ll be going now. I have other business to attend to. Please, don’t do anything stupid like attempt to infiltrate this club on your own.”

I stood up as well. “If I want to hand this over to Regius Alnum I’ll have to get going too.” I followed Detective Laymon out of the building.

We walked beside each other for a moment. “You’re not the most powerful spellcaster I’ve ever seen,” said Detective Laymon, “But there’s something strange about you. Like there’s a piece of you that has much more ability than anyone thinks.”

“Haha, you know me,” I said. “I do know a lot about structural magic and Siege Code.”

“Right, which is the whole reason why you’re here even with your practical exam scores. That’s not it. There’s an undefinable quality about you that, well, I’m having trouble defining.”

“Which is the definition of undefinable,” I said.

Detective Laymon sighed. “I’m going this way. Kid, if you ever want to talk, here’s my business card.” He handed me a card.

“Thanks,” I said.

We split up and I went to the library to use their public computer terminals. If the flash drive happened to have a hidden magical virus that the police and MIB hadn’t discovered, I’d like it to not destroy my very valuable computer setup back home.

I logged onto my student account and went to work setting up my environments. When I was ready I plugged the device in.

Nothing happened. The device didn’t even register. I unplugged it and plugged it back in.

There was a quick flicker of activity. I did some looking around for analysis tools online and downloaded the best one I could find. I then did some Siege Programming and coded an interface with the specific flash drive.

Then it registered. I knew that I was on to something that would take a lot of work and a lot of thought.

I cracked the first layer of security without much problem. Then I ran into the thing that the MIB hadn’t been able to decode. It was a double harmonic resonating data drive spiller. I looked up its exact function on a website dedicated to hacking and tried to use a code sword to break it.

I accidentally unleashed a hellish virus onto the school network.

“Oh, shit,” I said. I quickly worked damage control. The virus had grabbed hold of an admin account and was trying to unlock it. I needed to shut it down before it did any real damage. If I ended up frying the school’s network there was no telling the trouble I would be in.

I coded frantically for several minutes until I managed to contain the virus. I then looked at it, carefully, inside of an emulated sandbox.

The virus was genius. I had to give its creator that. This virus was, almost, sentient, and would be an iffy proposition considering the laws against AI.

I killed it with a programming sliver and then returned to the flash drive with a new respect for whoever had created its software. I went deeper into the device’s folders and found a lot of random data that didn’t make a lot of sense. There were folders all over the place with encrypted information and dead ends and things that probably mattered but were impossible to pin down.

I finally found a tool that was powerful enough to decrypt the first layer of encryption.

All it revealed was a single text file.

“Welcome to the dungeon,” it read. “This flash drive is protected by DUNGEON-IC software. In order to decode documents on this device, you must defeat the dungeons in order. Each dungeon has a number of puzzles and enemies for you to defeat. As you defeat these monsters, you will become more powerful and level up your character.”

What was this? A game that one played to unlock a flash drive? Why would someone install something like this if they actually wanted to hide the files?

It wasn’t anything I could figure out at the moment. Instead I opened an application underneath the text file that was called “startup.”

The world shimmered and then I was standing in an empty black space. A single signpost rose out of the place’s seeming center. Approaching the post, I held out my hand.

“Welcome, player,” said a voice above my head. “If you want to escape, you’re going to need to beat the first level. If you die here, your physical body will die as well.” The voice chuckled. “Have fun.”

A sword appeared in my grasp and a door materialized on the other side of the emptiness. I approached the door. Before entering I stopped. The door was made of solid oak wood and looked very sturdy. I reached towards the door handle and opened it.

A world of green stretched out before me. Rising above the trees was a gigantic volcano. Dinosaurs held their long necks to the sky. Something roared.

I knew exactly what I was getting in to. This, was a game of life and death.