Crack in the Kill Code (AmpCore #2)

41 - The Oversight Bureau

"I know where they are," Arrow told them, their fingers curling gently to manipulate the 3D map display in the centre of the room.

It swung smoothly, showing a glittering image of Hadrian's majestic corporate heart. For all the faults of those vast, bloated conglomerates, the things they'd built here still made Arrow's heart sing.

Vast towers of glass and steel, their whole exteriors were converted to living screens flooded with data. Spindly bridges connected the upper levels, fitted with pod cars to shuttle people back and forth between the cathedrals of research, development, financial wizardry and labyrinthine security.

They hadn't spent much time in those vaunted halls, but the experience had been amazing. They thought sadly of Piper, someone from another world who simply wouldn't – or couldn't – understand the feats the corporations were capable of if their power was wielded properly.

Suppressing a regretful sigh, Arrow swung the man away from the largest clusters of corporate power. The map swivelled northwards and zeroed in on a nondescript stretch of the city, filled with larger, functional-looking structures and an evident minimal corporate presence. A range of angular cuboids ranging from five to ten stories high formed an interconnected clump of bureaucracy – theoretically separated from the influence of the corporations.

Though, Arrow thought wryly, you would have to be extremely naive to believe such a thing.

"The city chambers?" Odiye cupped and elbow with one hand, the other stroking his chin thoughtfully. Hadrian's city chambers housed the city's democratic veneer – around a hundred councillors nominally elected by the people, though in practice each one could thank a patron corporation for their place there.

"I checked all the security comms from the Psi-Meridian Conference," they explained. "I found the junk data attack that incapacitated Brogan's security detail. They did a good job scrubbing it, but there were ghosts to trace. Then I just worked back to the attack origin point."

Toran looked at them. "Let me guess. Wayfinder?"

"Actually, no." Arrow bit their lip awkwardly. "It was routed through a Wayfinder network, but that was just a jump-off, not its origination point. I was able to trace it a little closer to home." They hesitated for a moment, then sighed, meeting Toran's gaze. "The original encryption protocols traced back to an internal Skiltron net."

"Skiltron?" His brows shot up in surprise. "So this was a fucking inside job?"

They shrugged. "We know that not everyone in Skiltron agrees with you and your dad."

His implants twanged with anger, making the air around him ripple before he gathered himself. Arrow watched, and felt, as he crammed the anger back down into his body. When they were sure he wasn't going to erupt, they continued.

"There was no ID attached to the junk signal, but I was able to pull send/receive logs." Arrow flicked her little finger and a subsidiary screen sprang into being, overlaid on the cityscape. At the same time a lattice of lines showing the comings and goings of those messages appeared, rattling between the city chambers and the corporate heart. "The messages coming back weren't coming from the city chambers themselves."

One more deft adjustment highlighted one of the buildings on the hologram. It was a big square, somewhat bland and nondescript when compared to the other structures around it. A real image overlay crawled over the display, showing a grey-walled cube, with a simple circular logo – an outer ring with a single dot in the centre – fixed above its glass doors.

Toran's eyes narrowed. "The Oversight Bureau?"

Arrow nodded.

"So you're telling me that's where they're holding Brogan?"