The Outskirts: Thé Crystal Keepers (Jace x OC)

The Crystal Keepers: 10

"The first issue is Joe Macfarland," Googol said.
"We sent him to warn you, Mira, when we learned that your father was sending legionnaires to apprehend you. I take it the intervention was a success."
"Barely," Mira said. She went on to explain how us two and the boys had escaped from Skyport.
"Remarkable," Googol said. "But Joe clearly rejoined you?"
Mira told about defeating Carnag and then going to Elloweer with Joe to find Honor.
"Any success?" Googol asked.
"We found her, and stopped another monster shapecrafters had made in Elloweer. Her name was Morgassa, and she was even worse than Carnag. We also found Kendal and Cole's friend
Dalton."
"You're both from Outside," Googol said, his vision gear aiming at me, Dalton, and Cole.
"Where did you live?"
"Arizona," I said. "Mesa, if you know the area."
"I do," Googol said. "I study your world a lot. It didn't used to interest us so much. For centuries our technologies have been more advanced than yours. But over the last few decades, as you have entered your computerized age, I have found many good ideas among your innovations. I find that inspiration often results from observation."
"In our world we call that copying," Dalton said with a smile.
"I attempt to adapt and improve those technologies that inspire me," Googol said. His vision gear swiveled back to Mira. "These shapecrafted monsters you describe perturb me. We have heard similar tales of late from Creon and Necronum, though none in our own kingdom. You say the shapecrafters could not command their creations?"
"Not Carnag or Morgassa," Mira said. "I don't know if they're getting better at it."
Googol raised two fingers to his lips and stared thoughtfully. The lenses of his vision gear turned softly, as if focusing. "How close has your father come to capturing you?"
"Close," Mira said. She told about the Hunter chasing us and detailed our encounters with Enforcers in Sambria and on the Red Road.
"The Hunter is formidable," Googol said broodingly. "And you encountered his Enforcers in Elloweer scant days ago?"
"Yes," Mira said.
Googol rubbed his chin. "Honor didn't join you after defeating Morgassa?"
"No," Mira said. "She went to find another of my sisters. I came here with Joe to look for Constance."
Googol frowned. "Joe knows that you're here looking for Constance. He also knows that Honor is off hunting for another sister. Does he know where she went?"
"Yes," Mira said.
Googol nodded slowly. "Don't tell me where unless I need to know. We must do a better job of restricting information. Joe knows too much. I'm not sure if the City Patrol fully grasps yet what they have in him."
"Maybe they won't figure it out," Mira said. "Joe is smart and committed."
"The Hunter is on your trail," Googol said. "It won't take him long to find Joe. We can't risk joe breaking. He's good man, and a brave one, but I would not trust anyone to last against the Hunter. Even without the Hunter, there is the chance the City Patrol will catch on to Joe's value. You were seen with him, Mira. Your image is on an ID card. If they connect Joe to you, they'll torture him without mercy until he talks. We have to take him away from them. It's not just a matter of loyalty. It's a strategic necessity."
"Can you do it?" Mira asked.
"I believe so," Googol replied. "Not without cost. We have a few remaining ways to monitor City Patrol communications. One method is thanks to good tech, plus, we still have a couple of people inside. We used to enjoy a much bigger advantage. The government had all the power, but we kept really good tabs on them and could stay out of their way. We could truly be Unseen.
"What happened?" Cole asked.
Googol smiled sadly. "We're not sure. Starting about two months ago, things changed. Some of our best people got busted. Smart, careful operatives who really knew the game. Within weeks, the Unseen lost nearly a quarter of our number. Secure, time-tested hideouts were discovered. Proven methods of operation no longer worked. The government didn't just have all the power. Suddenly they were outmaneuvering us."
"Did you fix the problem?" Jace asked.
"In a sense," Googol said. "Most of the Unseen retreated to our hideaways in Old Zeropolis. We took ourselves out of play."
"Old Zeropolis?" Cole asked.
"A brief history for the Outsiders," Googol announced. "Zeropolis has been built twice before. Originally, long ago and far from here,
Zeropolis arose with much less advanced technology. Innovation eventually made the first Zeropolis obsolete. The foundations were all wrong to welcome the new tech. It made more sense to start again. So a new Zeropolis, the second Zeropolis, what we now call Old Zeropolis, was established not terribly far beyond the northern boundaries of this city.
That city fell when Aeronomatron took over.
Hundreds of thousands of lives were lost."
"Who took over?" Dalton asked.
"A machine," Googol said. "A supercomputer that would dwarf anything your society has produced. Most people just call it Aero. This was in my grandfather's time, and I'm older than I look, thanks to my shaping skills slowing the aging process. After much bloodshed, the City Patrol managed to seal off Aero. Had they failed, this entire kingdom might have become uninhabitable."
"Crazy," I breathed.
Googol rocked forward in his seat. "To this day, Aero controls a major portion of Old Zeropolis.
At great cost, all of its manufacturing capabilities were destroyed, so the computer's domain is fixed. After the mayhem Aero caused, nobody wanted to live near it, so the newest Zeropolis, this one, was erected not far from the old. After the second city Was left abandoned for a good while, some people began to return.
The kind of people who didn't want to be found.
Old Zeropolis is a lawless place, almost completely unregulated. Someday the Zeropolitan government hopes to purge or reclaim the old city, but they haven't geared up for it yet. For now, the Grand Shaper lets it serve as a garbage dump for undesirables."
"Is Old Zeropolis mostly members of the Unseen?" Cole asked.
"Oh, no," Googol said. "It's mostly criminals. In a highly regulated kingdom, it's the most significant beacon of chaos. When operating there, we have to tread warily. But at the moment it's preferable to the city. The government has little influence there."
"Are we safe here?" Jace asked, looking around the room.
"I hope so," Googol said. "As a defensive tactic, I move around a lot. This is currently our most secure base of operations inside the city. But we don't know how Abram Trench and his people keep finding us. I worry they're using banned tactics."
"Like what?" I asked.
"In Old Zeropolis, they let Aero control too much," Googol explained. "When the computer went bad, it had access to everything. Vehicles.
Information. Communication. Essential services. Bots. You name it. Nobody wants another Aero, so the current Zeropolitan government has been very careful about not automating the city too much. None of the bots are armed. There are no surveillance cameras or automatic listening devices. Unconnected computers run different systems. For example, the computer that manages the magroads cannot communicate with the computers regulating the power facilities, or the computer that holds the ID card data, or any of the bots."
"But now you wonder if Abram Trench is cheating," Dalton said.
"Precisely," Googol said. "He doesn't want another Aero either. He definitely wants to call the shots, not bow down to a computer. But to deal with us, he may have decided to bend the laws that have been in place since the founding of this city. Added some surveillance systems.
Upgraded some bots. Who knows? It might explain how the City Patrol has suddenly become so effective."
"It could be a spy," Jace proposed.
"We've examined that possibility thoroughly,"
Googol said. "We keep our information fragmented and compartmentalized. Given all that has happened, I simply don't know who the mole could be. My guess is either they've found a way to reliably intercept our communications,
or they have new tech in place. We've been implementing all the precautions we can think of, including improved communication methods and taking extra care when navigating the city."
"And using arcade kids," Cole said.
"The Crystal Keepers have existed for years,"
Googol said. "Many of them eventually graduate to membership in the Unseen. The government can't find us where they're not looking, and while many of our covers have been blown, our teenage agents remain undetected. They get underestimated because of their youth, and we use that against Abram."
"Did Bluff get away?" Dalton asked.
I held my breath.
"Yes," Googol said. "He took out the City Patrol agent with a sleeping dart and got away clean."
"Using kids like that will only work until the government catches on," Mira said.
"Which is why I'm reluctant to overuse them,"
Googol said. "Over these past couple of months, many of our top spies have been exposed.
Several of the key technologies we rely on have been discovered and thwarted. I hesitate to use what limited resources remain to spring Joe. It could inspire City Patrol to ferret out our last assets. But the alternative is more dangerous still."
"Because of how much Joe knows," Dalton said.
"It's his knowledge of Stafford's daughters,"
Googol said. "Our sources in Junction report that finding the five princesses is now the High Shaper's uppermost priority. It makes more sense now that I know Miracle and Honor both have reclaimed their powers. Stafford is panicking.
He's bringing all of his resources to bear. What he currently lacks is concrete knowledge of their whereabouts."
"If Joe breaks under torture . . ." Mira said.
"His information becomes a lightning rod,"
Googol said. "The High Shaper will bring his full strength against the Unseen in Zeropolis right when we're reeling. It could mark the end of the resistance here. On the other hand, if we can find Constance and help you avoid detection, Mira, we could revitalize the revolution. It's going to be all or nothing. The first step will be to retrieve Joe."
"Any idea where to find Constance?" Mira asked hopefully.
"Not yet," Googol said. "None of us knew about you girls until your mother confided in a few of us earlier this year. When Stafford began to lose his powers, she knew the time was approaching to bring her daughters out of hiding, and she needed allies. I only recently learned how your mother can track your locations. Do your friends know?"
"Yes," Mira said.
"I found out about the stars when Harmony asked us to send someone to help you, Mira.
Your mother has still never asked us to seek out any of her other daughters, though we were led to believe that Constance is hiding somewhere in Zeropolis. I will confess that I have been quietly searching on my own, but she is well concealed. I have no clue as to her whereabouts."
"She could be anywhere?" Mira asked.
"I have found no record of her," Googol said.
"Constance may have found shelter out in the empty wastes of Zeropolis. She could have an obscure hideout here in the city, or even in Old Zeropolis. For all I know, she might have moved to another kingdom. Only your mother knows for sure, but she has not yet shared that knowledge with us."
"Can we contact my mother?" Mira asked.
"Not with a communicator," Googol said.
"Those signals don't carry out of the kingdom.
Not even into Junction, where all forms of shaping work to some degree. For sensitive matters, our contact has been through live messengers.
Our last interaction came when she asked us to send Joe to help you."
"Could we send a messenger to her?" Mira asked.
Googol became grave. "It would require the utmost caution. Particularly in the current climate, with your father raging, and the Zeropolitan government closing in, such messenger represents a great deal of risk. An intercepted messenger could ruin us and your mother together. Your father still doesn't know she was responsible for hiding you girls all these years."
Mira rubbed her forehead. "It's never easy."
"Seldom, lately," Googol said. "But that doesn't mean we won't try. We just have to make smart moves. Abram Trench would love nothing more than to get his hands on you, Mira."
"Why'd he side with the High Shaper?" I asked.
"The other Grand Shapers rebelled and went into hiding. What made Abram loyal to Mira's dad?"
"I know Abram Trench well," Googol said. "I served as his chief technical adviser for many years. Abram was seduced by the advantages of siding with Stafford. Abram Trench has no real loyalty to anyone besides Abram Trench.
The better I came to know him, the more he brought me into his confidence, the more I feared him. Eventually it led to me quitting and joining the resistance."
"What gave him away?" Cole pursued.
"The technology he withholds," Googol said. "I want everyone in Zeropolis to benefit from our innovations. The people of Zeropolis could have television, Internet, private communicators, and more. But free communication is an enemy to control. So mass communication is heavily limited. Extensive restrictions also apply to individual communicators. Abram has all but eliminated private forms of transportation in the city, and he's always looking for ways to reduce and track vehicles in the outposts. The list goes on. Abram works hardest to create tech and establish policies that will increase his personal advantage. The longer I worked with him, the better I understood the absolute control he wishes to achieve. I realized he has to be stopped."
"You mentioned he'd love to get Mira," Jace said.
"Abram Trench is a master politician," Googol said. "With how badly the High Shaper wants his daughters back, if Abram could find any of them, he would use the opportunity to create enormous leverage to further his aims."
"What does he want most?" Mira asked.
"Abram desires complete control of Zeropolis,"
Googol said. "He doesn't care about the other kingdoms. And he doesn't mind being polite to the High King if it means he can function as dictator here. Abram adores innovation, and his ambition knows no boundaries."
"You were his main techie guy?" Dalton asked.
"It was a position of great influence," Googol said. "I'll humbly admit to being one of the most talented tinkers and technomancers in the kingdom. But I'm not Abram's equal. The man is truly gifted. Whether he means to use those gifts for the common good is where I harbor my doubts."
"My father works with too many men like that,"
Mira said. "We'll stop him. The first step is to free Joe?"
"Yes," Googol said, his demeanor changing from thoughtful to businesslike. "Our opportunity will come tomorrow. He is currently at City Patrol Headquarters. He'll be trans ferred to a holding area. I believe we will be able to gather enough details to intercept Joe en route. The City Patrol will then have proof that we're still listening. If we succeed, such a bold crime will invite retaliation."
A soft ping, ping, ping, began to chime. It made me think of the ding he sometimes heard in elevators.
Googol's face froze. "No," he whispered. "Not now."
"What is it?" Mira asked.
"That's the alarm," he said, his voice detached.
"Highest alert. This base has been compromised. We're under attack."