Chapter 5 – Clashes

Breaking into government records was more involved than Callum had thought. Between Lucy handling the digital stuff and his own ability to get anywhere, he’d gotten probably a touch lazy and overconfident about such tasks. Or maybe it was just that GAR and mage Houses weren’t all that large, unlike the federal government.

There were hundreds of offices scattered over multiple states, and just trying to find out where all the records were stored was an ordeal. That went for both physical and digital, since it seemed that the network that stuff was stored on was ancient. Getting Lucy access was easy enough, but things didn’t go as smoothly as they had before.

“Why is it so terrible?” Lucy groaned, slapping the table next her laptop, which was plugged into a server in an obscure room through a portal. “It’s like, fifty year old languages and database software! I haven’t even touched this stuff! Ugh, I’m going to have to go learn it all.”

Callum laughed. He wasn’t unsympathetic, but of all the complaints to be had about government level security, the age and obsolescence wasn’t one he’d anticipated. Though it wasn’t like the physical filing was any better. How anyone got any work done was beyond him.

“Well, best to focus on the immediate stuff for now. Get rid of any of the communications or memos directed at Chester. Did you find out who incited it at least?”

“Yeah, Director Cornell. I figure, just wipe everything of his to start. Copy it all and give it to Chester, though I don’t know if his lawyer could do anything even with proof.”

“Probably not,” Callum agreed. “They couldn’t even answer how they got it, even if the government admitted it was real. But it’s worth a shot. Right, let’s pay a visit to Cornell and move on from there.”

Callum wasn’t certain if he was more surprised at how little magical protection there was on government offices, or how much. The relative lack of it showed that there really weren’t many supernaturals, or at least not supernatural interest, high up in the government bureaucracy. But there were some places that were warded or had some kind of fae protections. Though he didn’t know if that actually meant there were supernaturals directly involved. It was entirely possible some people had family trinkets with fae warding on them.

Cornell’s office was so messy it made him actually appreciate the organization at GAR. At least the filing cabinets Constance had kept were properly alphabetized and divided. Instead there were piles of manila folders and an honest-to-goodness cathode ray tube monitor, with the computer password written on a sticky note adhered to the oversized bezel of said monitor.

Admittedly, this was all inside a bunch of mundane security that Callum could completely ignore. People tended to get complacent about their personal security when they had others to take care of it for them. He didn’t even know where the Director was, despite it being work hours.

Both he and Lucy wore gloves, reaching through useful portals rather than actually going there directly. No need to leave more of a presence than necessary. They expected to find a receipt for whatever had started the harassment, but any information would help. Even if it was just another location to look through.

“What do you think they’ll do if all the stuff related to Chester keeps disappearing?” Lucy asked idly. “I mean, it can only help, but won’t they realize someone is messing with them?”

“Sure, a few people will, but it’s a huge bureaucracy. Without a paper trail and clear instructions, it’s just going to mire itself in confusion and internal investigations.” Callum flipped through a folder and grimaced at the dense columns of numbers attached to a name he didn’t recognize. “I’d feel guilty about it, except it’s just a lot of bad actors weaponizing other bad actors.”

“Tell you what, I feel properly secret-agent-y breaking into top secret facilities,” Lucy said, having less compunctions about their search than Callum. “Though it’s a little disappointing I don’t really get to use the vulnerabilities I’ve learned. All that work and people leave passwords out or have unpatched fifty-year-old code in their computers!”

“Turns out that the government is banal and dusty, who would’ve thought?” Callum said, and Lucy pouted at him.

Despite their complaints, there was some information to point them to other locations, not far away. There was so much bureaucracy in one place, and yet it wasn’t actually centralized. It was as if someone had gone out of their way to make it as obtuse and inefficient as possible.

“At least we don’t have to walk it,” Lucy said, looking at the drone footage. “It reminds me of all the GAR hallways, except worse.”

“Yeah, there’s nothing more depressing than big government buildings — wait a minute.” Callum frowned as his perceptions ran across a bit of magic where it shouldn’t have been. For the most part he ignored the normal people doing their own jobs, since they were just government employees. Even if there were occasional fae artifacts around in offices, it wasn’t surprising given how wealthy people ended up with gifts or heirlooms.

But there was a difference between that and seeing fae magic actually in a person. While he still couldn’t really read the structure of fae stuff, he had seen something similar before — the geas that had been put on Lucy. Perhaps not as strong, but it was still some kind of manipulation.

“Looks like someone under a geas. A weaker one, but still a geas.” Callum sat up straight in his chair and Lucy let out a long breath.

“Guess we’ve got to do something about that,” she said.

“Yeah, let me get my cloak,” Callum said, standing up and reaching through his portal network. Since it was made out of fae magic, he couldn’t store it in the redoubt without destroying it. He had to leave it in an Earth-side cache, and leave open a portal while he used it so there’d at least be some fae type magic around.

He put it on, feeling a little bit silly, even if the cloak was itself quite comfortable. But it seemed to do what it was supposed to, and any time he acted as The Ghost he figured he might as well wear it. Dealing with the fae was tricky.

“Aight, if you could get pictures of this person and his name, I’ll just clean him up.”

“Sure,” Lucy said, fingers dancing across the keyboard of her laptop as she searched for the person’s identity. “But who are we gonna tell?”

“Well, we do have a fae princess who’s supposed to be moderating faerie stuff on Earth. Eventually.”

“Okay, but what’s Felicia going to do?”

“I sure have no idea, but frankly, that’s her problem,” Callum said. Lucy raised her eyebrows at him. “If she asks for help, that’s one thing, but I wouldn’t dare to suggest policy when it comes to fae power struggles.”

“I guess that makes sense,” Lucy said. “Okay, got the name and photos.”

“Great,” Callum said, and focused on the government official in question. He was sitting in a conference room with a few other people, eating lunch and playing on his phone. Nothing out of the ordinary. After calculating sight-lines for a few moments, Callum opened up a very small portal behind the guy, leading to an anti-mana dimension.

He was getting slightly better at it, and didn’t need to lean on his vis crystals as often, which was good since anti-mana was by far the best way he had to deal with hostile magic. The anti-mana that bubbled out from the portal swept through the man’s body, erasing the fae influence before Callum collapsed it.

The portal itself hadn’t gone entirely unnoticed; wherever it led did have its own atmosphere, and a gust of wind shoved a few papers around. People shifted and looked about confused, and one of them may have seen the dark circle behind Callum’s target, but since it vanished so quickly he suspected they’d just write it off.

The guy he’d just purged the mind control from, or whatever it was, didn’t seem to notice, but that was fine with Callum. It was better than undergoing a sudden seizure or something because a fae had twisted his brain around so much he was just an empty shell. In a way Callum was glad that GAR had been run by people with no interest in Earth, simply because hijacking leaders and governments would be so easy to people with magic.

“Done,” Callum said. “Guess I’d better sweep for others. I don’t think whoever is doing this would stop at just one random bureaucrat.” Though for all he knew the man was important. There was no telling who had control of what in a bureaucracy, not really.

He focused on his perceptions as he swept the drone through the building, and moved on to the neighboring ones, focusing on any trace of magic. Aside from the three fae artifacts he’d already found – all old coins, in some kind of display case – there was someone with a charm necklace and one rug. None of them seemed to really affect people, though. It wasn’t until he moved through to the more rarefied echelons that he ran into another affected person.

The victim that time was an older lady, in yet another conference room, having a meeting. Which seemed to be about the only thing that went on in the government complex. He teleported the drone into a likely corner, putting the little box on top of a projector, and waited for Lucy to capture the face of the woman before purging the fae magic out of her.

She actually wobbled, but didn’t fall over, and listening to the drone feed she merely made claims of being tired, low blood sugar, and other such excuses. Which she probably believed, though Callum didn’t like how it had affected her. She might have been under their control for a long time.

“You know, this isn’t as widespread as I expected,” Lucy remarked.

“They probably can’t do it to just anyone,” Callum said. “I mean, fae magic is bullshit but it does have rules. Plus, from what I’ve seen it’s pretty obvious when people are manipulated. It’s not like these people have unquestioned authority, either, so there’s compromises to be made.”

While he didn’t have the time to survey literally everyone in Washington, DC, he made a pass through all the important areas of governance and purged three more people. None of them were particularly high up, but there was clearly some kind of plan at play. Hopefully one that would be derailed by removing the control.

“You know, there’s probably people all over the world who have some kind of control on them,” Lucy suggested.

“Possibly, but I can’t scan literally everyone,” Callum sighed. “I swear, the more we look the worse this gets. I really hope that Felicia can clean it up more directly.”

***

“It fits in with what I heard over in Faerie,” Ray Danforth said, sitting with Felicia and two archmages. Neither Archmage Taisen nor Archmage Hargrave were particularly happy to hear what Wells had to report, though it wasn’t like they could be targeted by any government. Neither House existed in any mundane records or could be accessed by mundane enforcement.

“Now, I’m pretty sure they’re going to backstab House Janry and GAR the moment they can,” he continued. “But for the moment they’re working hand in hand. Exactly why they want to control Earth’s governments is beyond me, though.”

“Power,” Felicia wrote. “There are billions of humans to play parts in whatever stories they decide to pursue. There aren’t even millions of fae. The incursion of the Ways will help spread the mana of Faerie too, bringing the two worlds closer together.”

“Essentially, an invasion,” Taisen concluded. “Do they realize how dangerous it is if the mundanes catch wind of it? Have any of them seen what a modern military can do? Glamours aren’t really going to help against bombs and missiles.”

You could be reading stolen content. Head to the original site for the genuine story.

Ray grunted. He didn’t see how bombs and missiles would help defend against fae blending in and manipulating people, but the worry about Earth finding out about the supernaturals had turned from theoretical to real all too quickly. Now that he was out of it, he didn’t have much good to say about the Guild of Arcane Regulation, but they had kept that from being anywhere near a possibility for a very long time.

“I guess the question is what Wells expects you to do about it,” Ray said to Felicia.

“Resolve it,” Felicia wrote. “He expects me to do my duty as a daughter of Oberon.”

“That seems a little…” Ray paused and considered his words. “It’s a bit much to expect.”

Felicia sighed and rubbed at her eyes, then dropped her glamour. Which was fairly unusual, though Ray was not unfamiliar with the sight of her native fae form. He was pretty sure she had somehow put on a few inches, though, and her skin was shading toward a darker blue.