The Committee’s primary headquarters was not something that anyone could just walk up to. Unlike Eden’s Garden, which kept their leadership at the top of the tree and in a very known location, Crossroads tended toward more obfuscation. There were several ‘offices’ kept by the leadership in various locations that could be accessed, such as J Street in Washington DC. But their actual stronghold was much more difficult to get to. It was that place, that most private and secure location, that Elisabet had disappeared from, which could only be reached by select people using a select few methods.
At the moment, Sariel, Jophiel, Mercury, and Larees were possessing four of those people, and were driving one of those methods. The Range Rover had been deeply enchanted, allowing it to pass through the dozens of shields and misdirects set up to keep intruders away and/or alert the Committee and their people. The spells were slightly altered every day, preventing one from simply finding an old copy and passing through that way. And they would have been altered automatically should anyone expect that this group had run into trouble. Hence the need for such subtlety to get to this point.
Driving the SUV along the street away from the Lannery Towers building, Jophiel reached down. Her hand (or the hand of the man she was possessing, in any case), found a button there, which she pushed and held in for five seconds. At that point, there was a crackle-boom of electricity that engulfed the vehicle, reminiscent of a certain famous Delorean traveling in time. Any Bystanders watching would immediately forget the other vehicle had ever existed.
The Range Rover, meanwhile, appeared driving along a completely different road somewhere on the California coast. A bright blue light manifested itself in front of the vehicle, just as they passed through it. If the spells on the car had not been correct, they would have slammed into it like a fly hitting a windshield. As it was, they passed through like it wasn’t there. A second later, the crackle-boom was back and they were driving along some mountain road somewhere in the midwestern United States. A green light appeared that time, allowing them to pass.
That continued another six or seven times, as they passed through shield after shield. The final light was gold, and it transported them to a small country road in a place surrounded by grassy fields, with high, snowy mountains visible off in the distant horizon. One more shield, a black one, appeared in front of the car. This one actually tingled as they passed through it.
Then they were through, and a massive castle lay ahead of them. A literal fortress, perched on the edge of a deep cliff, a thousand foot drop into the ravine below surrounding three quarters of the enormous stone building. It towered over the surrounding landscape, bigger than any made by ancient humans. Three layers of black walls of ascending height, about fifty yards apart, surrounded the part of the castle that was still accessible by land, and each of those walls were manned by dozens of gargoyle statues. Not the literal gargoyles, those small creatures that piloted their suits of armor, but statues similar to those at the academy. Given provocation, the statues would spring to life and form a first line defense.
There were more defenses than that, too many for Jophiel to easily name. But with any luck, they would not come into play. They just had to continue being… subtle. Which, given the presence of Sariel and Mercury, two of the Olympus’s best covert agents, should be doable.
Using the memories of the man she was possessing, Jophiel drove right up to the large gate at the first wall. His hand moved to press against the reader there, which read far more than just his prints before the gate began to slide open. They were able to pass through into the first courtyard, where a guard house stood. The Heretic there looked them over before stepping closer. He spoke a passphrase, testing them before Jophiel gave the answering code. Then he let them pass through.
They continued that in the second courtyard with a new guard, before finally being admitted into the lot of the castle itself. There, Jophiel pulled the car around to park amongst several other cars along the side of the castle, before the four emerged, along with their non-possessed companions. A brief bit of small talk followed, before Jophiel’s group managed to excuse and extract themselves to their own business. Giving a brief look to one another, they left the others and started along the marble path to the main doors. On the way, they passed several small flower gardens and fountains before reaching the flight of steps leading up to the entrance, a pair of doors that stood a good fifteen feet high, each eight feet wide. The doors opened as they approached, revealing that they were also several feet thick and lined with powerful spell runes that glowed as the group passed through. It would take an army to break into this castle by force.
Or a handful of Seosten could do it much more quietly.
The inside of the castle itself was much more modern than the outside would suggest. It looked like the interior of any other high end office building, not that different from the one they had just left. People bustled to and fro, everyone clearly moving with a mission and not paying much attention to the Seosten-possessed group who had just entered. They were all quite busy.
As were Sariel and the others, of course. Without looking to one another, they continued on. Jophiel took the lead, as she had been to this building far more recently than the others (Larees, of course, had never been there at all). She walked onward, guiding the other Seosten through the maze of corridors and a couple different elevators until they reached the right floor. Each Committee member commanded their own floor of the building. This one was Elisabet’s.
Even with her gone, the floor was nowhere near empty. Dozens of Heretics moved through the various rooms and halls on this floor, their work continuing in the hope that their leader would be found soon. Elisabet’s focus had been on the security of every Crossroads-controlled place on Earth, and that kind of thing wasn’t going to go away just because Elisabet herself was missing.
Ignoring everyone just as they in turn were being ignored, the group moved down the hall. The main office belonging to Elisabet was, of course, protected from entry. Only other Committee members or those with the correct spell code could pass through the doors.
Jophiel, of course, had the codes. As they approached a deceptively simple-looking wooden door, a holographic circle appeared in front of it. She reached out, and as her finger made contact with the glowing circle, a dot appeared there. Carefully, yet with a quickness born of so many years experience, she drew the symbol. It glowed briefly to match the circle, then both disappeared and the door opened.
No one spoke until they had entered the room, the door closed, and both Sariel and Mercury checked the place for any listening or observation spells. Once the two gave a nod, Larees finally exhaled. “I’m kind of surprised they don’t have people all over this place still.”
“They don’t see the need,” Jophiel informed her. “As far as they’re concerned, Elisabet wasn’t here when she disappeared. They believe she was ambushed elsewhere, by Prosser and his people. They have no reason to specifically lock down this office. Though we should be as quick as possible. Our… hosts have some time free, but they will be missed eventually.”
This first room wasn’t the actual inner sanctum for Elisabet. Instead, it was the outer office where her assistant was supposed to work. But Elisabet had purposefully not kept an assistant for quite some time. Actually, she and Jophiel had entertained some possibility of asking Vanessa to take the job in a sort of internship capacity over the summer. That, of course, was before everything had happened.
Passing through the outer office to reach the sanctum itself, the Seosten looked around briefly. Jophiel and Sariel took opposite sides of the office, making some preliminary inspections and preparations for the assortment of spells they would need to use. At the same time Mercury stepped over to the desk while using a Seosten field-engraver to draw a spell on the sleeve of the man he was possessing. He activated it a second later, producing a silver and purple orb, slightly larger than a golf ball. It was what the Heretics referred to as a PAWS, which stood for Panoptic Analysis Window System. Essentially, it recorded the entire area it scanned, including the contents of all the dressers, bookshelves, and so on. Later, it would be able to project a solid holographic reconstruction of the room and everything in it. If, by chance, there were any clues in the room that they didn’t have time to go through now (such as a note stuck or scrawled into one of the books), the PAWS recording would allow them to find and read it.
The downside, of course, was that it (understandably) took a decent length of time to make a full recording of the entire room and every object within. Given the size of the place and the amount of books and other things in it, the scan would probably take at least twenty minutes. Between that and the spells that Sariel and Jophiel were working on, they weren’t getting done here any time soon.
Moving back through the outer office and checking the door to make sure the hallway beyond was clear, Larees turned back, giving a beckoning gesture to Mercury, visible through the other door as he finished setting the PAWS to record the room. He nodded before joining her, and the two of them slipped back out into the hall. They had their own work to do while Sariel and Jophiel were busy.
Passing other Heretics in the corridor and beyond that in the elevator, Larees and Mercury used the knowledge pulled from their host’s minds to greet them appropriately. To any and all who saw the two of them, they were those people. They knew names, histories, the way each person interacted with them, and more. They knew it all, passing seamlessly as the one they were possessing. They even knew what to say when asked what they were doing to allay suspicion.
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Riding the elevator several floors up, the two stepped off, giving a farewell to the ones they had ridden with before heading on through a softly carpeted, pleasantly lit corridor with paintings of various historical figures lining the walls.
As they were passing a couple of other Heretics who were talking, Mercury abruptly stopped, looking back that way. Something they’d just said… “Hey,” he spoke up, drawing the attention of the other pair. “What was that about Joselyn Atherby?” They all knew the name, of course. After Gaia’s spell removed the memory eraser and flooded everyone’s minds with that rush of information (or misinformation, as many were calling it), there was no need to be coy about it. Of course a Heretic, even one working in here, would be curious about hearing the name.
One of the other men, a guy named Turry according to Mercury’s host’s memories, gave that easy smile of one with gossip. “Yeah,” he replied, “one of the scouting pairs think they spotted her outside some mall in Timberline, Iowa. Can you believe it? They’re suiting up a group to go check it out.” He winked. “Who knows, maybe those fucking traitors are holed up somewhere in there. Get in one of the old stores, use magic to make it bigger on the inside? They could do it. Hiding in plain sight.” He shrugged. “Or maybe it’s bullshit. Everyone wants to be the one who catches these assholes, especially that psycho bitch. Maybe the scouts were just seeing things.”
Reaching out, the man clapped Mercury on the shoulder. “But hey, man, either way, they’ll get ‘em, right? Those fucks’ll get what’s coming to them.”
With an easy smirk, Mercury patted the hand on his shoulder, nodding. “Of course they will. Those guys are gonna get exactly what they deserve.”
They split apart then, the two Seosten-possessed Heretics heading further down the corridor while Larees spoke through their silent connection. What in the living fuck?
I don’t know, Mercury replied a bit tensely. But it’s obviously not any of us. Joselyn… why would she be at some mall to be spotted by Crossroads scouts right now, of all times? This doesn’t make sense.
Should we tell the people back at camp about it now? Larees asked. Her real question, of course, was if they should tell Joselyn’s children about their mother potentially being seen.
There was a brief pause from the man before he sent back, No. Not right now. We don’t know everything about it, and looking into that too much is going to draw suspicion we can’t handle. We’ll keep our ears and eyes open, see what we can take in. If we told them now, we’d just be distracting them right as they’re working on getting that Gerardo kid and the other prisoners out. We’ll see what happens and let them know once we have real information. No point adding more confusion and distraction right now.
Larees agreed. She had agreed, actually, before even asking the question. But Mercury was the superior officer here, and she had defaulted to his opinion.
The two continued on, heading through several more layers of security. These they passed not simply with information drawn from their own hosts, but also codes provided by Jophiel. They were ways through security that she and Elisabet had built in over the years without the other Committee members realizing, so there was no reason the codes would have been revoked after Elisabet disappeared.
Security was tight here. Yet no one questioned them. The other side of having so many layers of protection that it was (supposedly) impossible to quietly break through them was that once you were past it, everyone there just assumed you were supposed to be. As long as you looked like you knew where you were going, you could be invisible.
Reaching an unlabeled metal door down an unremarkable side corridor, the two exchanged brief looks. Mercury produced a pair of sunglasses from his host’s jacket, slipping them on. As one, the two turned to put their backs against the nearby wall. They checked for surveillance one last time, before Mercury stepped out of his host. As he did so, Larees put an arm around the Heretic, using a telekinetic power from her own host to keep her partner’s upright. She stood there like that, keeping the unconscious Heretic upright to avoid drawing any attention from someone who might pass by.
Mercury himself, meanwhile, stepped right to the metal door. He input the code they were given by Jophiel, tugging it open before stepping through. As he did so, a warm tingle began to spread over him.
This was the security measure that even Jophiel couldn’t do anything about. Elisabet had not been in charge of this section of the building. She could get them the code to go through the door, but could do nothing about the actual magical scan that was supposed to ensure that only those with access were allowed in, code or no code. The security scan would see that his host was not allowed in, and immediately alert security.
Or… it would, if not for Mercury’s Tartarus-given ability to delay magic affecting him. The scan should have immediately shown he wasn’t allowed in that room, but he was delaying its work, slowing the magic from completing on him long enough to do what he needed to. It was why he had to be the one to do this.
The room was relatively small, mostly filled with computers, monitors, and a table with a holographic map on it. There were several wheeled leather chairs around the room, though only one was occupied. The man there turned in his chair, speaking up casually. “What’d you forget this ti–what the–”
That was as far as he got before Mercury used his Seosten-boost to lunge across the room. His hand grabbed the other man’s, possessing him instantly.
With his new host in hand (and immediately shuffled into unconsciousness), Mercury moved to the nearby console. The security station was just starting to flash its warning about the man who had just moved through it when he used memories drawn from his new host to silence it with a guest access code. He then added another couple codes before opening the door for Larees. The two of them brought in his earlier host, setting him on a chair.
“I’ll deal with the blood,” Mercury informed the woman. “You handle the logs and cameras.”
Larees nodded, moving to one of the nearby computers. Working quickly, she adjusted the security logs to remove all traces of their group’s access and presence in any of the places they shouldn’t have been. She also deleted them from any of the camera footage in those areas.
Mercury, meanwhile, moved to the holographic map in the middle of the room. It showed an image of the Earth, with various countries and cities listed and marked with different colors. In the middle of the table, below the map, was a vial of blood, set in a provided slot there with several green lights on around it.
The vial was Elisabet’s blood. While there were many ways to shield against a scan like the one being performed here, intended to point out where in the world the person eventually appeared, there was still an off chance the scan might eventually pick up something if Elisabet were ever on Earth without such defenses up.
Jophiel, therefore, wanted the vial for her own use. Tracking her partner (in every sense of the word) would be easier with the blood. And she definitely didn’t want Crossroads to have it. So, carefully, Mercury replaced the vial set into the map slot with an identical one drawn from his pocket. Identical, that was, save for the contents. The blood in that vial was taken from a long-dead Heretic woman who had been lost in the war against the Fomorians. The odds of it showing up anywhere on Earth any time soon were… slim, to say the least. But the computer would keep scanning for it, and the Heretics would be none the wiser.
Both of their work done, Mercury erased the memory of his current host, leaving him to wake up in his chair in about thirty seconds with no idea anything had changed. He then repossessed his previous host, and they left the room, heading to rejoin the others. The work that Larees had done would continue to erase their presence for another hour, just to be on the safe side.
By the time the two rejoined Jophiel and Sariel, the place was a lot more active. People were running around, orders were being shouted, and there was general barely ordered chaos. Not because they had been found out, of course. No, the reason this particular beehive had been kicked was that news of both distraction-attacks had reached them. Committee agents were being mustered to back up the other Heretics already being sent to respond.
We should go, Sariel murmured as the four stood in the corridor, watching a group rush past. Before things get too crazy.
What did you find? Mercury asked, once they started moving together for the exit.
The answer came from Jophiel. Not enough. There was obvious frustration in her voice. Someone went in and erased almost all of the evidence. There were trace signatures of a teleportation happening around that time, but not enough to get an actual location.
Not yet, anyway, Sariel put in gently. This wasn’t a complete waste. We have the blood, so if we can get a general location, even just a place to start, we can use it. And there’s more we can do. Whoever cleaned up the room didn’t do a perfect job. Believe me, I have some ideas. But they’ll take time.
Time that Elisabet might not have! Jophiel snapped, while they climbed into the same vehicle that had brought them here.
I know, Sariel assured her. Let’s just go. We’ll leave these guys at a restaurant with memories of going to get food, and get out of there. Then find out if the others managed to save Sean and the rest of the prisoners.
In the meantime, Mercury informed her, there’s something else we heard. Something we might want to go check out.
It’s about Joselyn Atherby, and a mall.