Daemon (Daemon, #1)

by Leinad Zeraus

Where the medieval city of Lyon had its Lane of Tanners, Southern California had its Vale of the Baristas and its Canyon of Firefighters and Rescue Personnel.

Signature control was a never-ending battle for a prairie rave. Lines of car headlights were the enemy.

Gragg looked up at the DJ tower, flickering in the strobing laser light. Mix Master Jamal was laying a trance groove. The topless go-go dancers on ten-foot pedestals danced rhythmically. Gragg smirked. The strippers weren’t so much for the teen guys as the teen girls. Suburban girls acted scandalized, but they’d tell friends who’d have to see it for themselves. Where else would girls from good families see nude dancers? In the seedy strip club on the state highway? Hardly.

Another guard approached the car. ‘Oh, you called for backup. You need protection from a helpless woman, Clem?’ The second guard eased the first away from the car and then turned to her. ‘Ms Anderson, using your superior social position to belittle a powerless employee does not speak well of you.’ She stared at him.

A culture of secrecy dating back to the Cold War permeated the place. Posters seemingly from a bygone era hung in the common spaces, extolling the virtues of keeping secrets – even from other top-secret researchers. However, with the explosion of technology throughout the nineties, even the NSA was no longer able to keep up with the worldwide flow of digital information, and they were forced to let the rumors of their omniscience hide a brutal reality: no one knew where the next threat was coming from. Nation states were no longer the enemy. The enemy had become a catchall phrase: bad actors.

In a corner boardroom of the OPS-2B building, a group of agency directors convened an emergency meeting. No introductions were necessary. They had already worked together closely in the War on Terror and the War on Drugs, and they stood ready to combat any other noun that caused trouble.

‘Once again, gentlemen, reality intrudes.

The Nomex appeared to have protected him from the worst of it, but he felt the confused buzzing in his nerve endings that was the neurological equivalent of ‘Please Stand By For Pain …’

He was beginning to feel the rush now. This wasn’t a game, and it was clearly designed by a well-funded and technologically capable person. He had always sought the edge – and this was it. This was as far from Main Street as he’d ever been. This wasn’t the tattooed, pierced, neo-tribal rebellious bullshit of his generation. This was a quiet demonstration of networked power. This was it.

She felt oddly secure for the first time in her life. A kept woman. As a well-paid consultant on retainer to Daedalus Research, Inc. – no doubt owned by the Daemon – she was making more money then she’d ever made in her life. All her travel expenses were being paid on an apparently bottomless company credit card. Her airline tickets were all first class, and she had a chartered private jet for this little jaunt out to Nauru. She was bewildered and excited. Every day was filled with surprises. What a change from the network affiliate. Her new boss was an undead automaton from hell, true, but no job was perfect.

Oto smiled in that good-natured way South Seas islanders have when noticing how fucked up the mainland is. ‘The dead are punishing the living, eh?’

‘Surely the NSA has heard of phones. They’re those things you tap.’