Coming & Going For The Week Ending 7/30/2022

Notable comings and goings this week:

• Robert Krose's entire Mammon series is out on Kindle. The first two books are also available in paperback, hardcover, and audio; check their individual pages.
• Jon del Arroz opened preorders for Blunder Island at his site store so as to avoid fuckery by SJWs. This will close in a few days, so get on this now.
• Imperium Press's New Releases page is here; has reprints of classics of literature and history that you'll be hard-pressed to find elsewhere for a decent price.
• DVX Publishing has a slate of upcoming releases that will be certain to tantalize and invigorate you in the weeks and months to come. See herehttps://dvxpublishing.com/upcoming for more.
• Antelope Hill Press has an ambitious slate of originals and translations coming soon that will keep you busy when you wait for DVX and Imperium to get new stuff up for sale.
• Out of the United Kingdom, Claymore Books published How It Was Done, about Burnley BNP and its story by one who did it. You may also like Hammer of the Patriot.
• Yakov's campaign for Light Unto Another World continues. Found here.
• A new Super Robot mecha novel, Validus-V, by Van Allen Plexico is up at Amazon in Kindle and paperback. Found here.

Signal Boost: "Overmind" by Jon Del Arozz

The Leading Hispanic Voice in Science Fiction, Jon del Arroz, has a new comic-and-novel project up at Kickstarter: Overmind.

OVERMIND is a 66-Page graphic novel in the tradition of the great science fiction European comics, made for a modern era with the best art and storytelling in comics!

It is accompanied by a full-length sequel novel starring Special Agent Ayla Rin by #1 Bestselling Sci-Fi author, Jon Del Arroz.

We have a number of great rewards and add-ons with amazing collectibles and tons of books for your reading pleasure.

THE TEAM

This project is already funded. That makes this a sureshot, so feel free to pile on now as it's all about the Stretch Goals.

$6,000 - All backers will receive a courtesy digital copy of Flying Sparks Volume 1

$10,000 An Ayla Rin Origin Short Prose Story digitally for all backers

$12,500 OVERMIND logo Stickers for all physical backers

$15,000 Ayla Rin trading card for all physical backers

$20,000. Bonus Pages! Process sketches added to the OVERMIND book with a deep look inside Ayla Rin's gadgets and life!

$25,000 Aya Rin bookmark with physical every order

$30,000 We will create an Audiobook version of the Ayla Rin prose novel

You'll find the campaign page here. Rewards start at $17(US), and there's options to get other work that Jon's published such as Deus Vult.

Suddenly, ANTHOLOGY!

I got invited to contribute to my first fiction anthology recently. After a group chat last Sunday, I got clarification that we can talk about this publically now that we're all working on it, so here it is: Six Salvations

Daddy Warpig gave us our prompt last Sunday. Where we've gone with it is very, very different from one to the next. As far as I know, I'm the only one opting for a historical setting. Everyone else is (more or less) contemporary or in the future, and we're going for very different takes on the McGuffin we're given in the prompt and what it means. I'm confident that readers will enjoy our stories, and therefore the anthology as a whole.

No, this doesn't mean I'm benching Blood Moon. After having some beta readers give me feedback, I'm going to rewrite it and the new goal will be to have it ready when the anthology drops so I can take advantage of cross-promotion. After I finish these two stories, I'm moving on to another right away. Dragon Award winner Brian Niemeier has a great post on how the giants of the Pulp Era made their fortunes today, and what that means for me is that I've got a lot of professional development to do this year.

In short, Trad Pub is so wrong that they're not even in the same galaxy as right- and hasn't been for decades. Those who want to prosper need to stop with the obese books and get back to the historical norm--the mean--that is the 40-60K word novel. That sort of length is proven to sustain reader interest, and it's time we got back to it. All of the years I've written for free are finally starting to pay off.

Story Fragment: The Cancer Comes From Spookville

Another story fragment. Comment below if you have anything useful to say.

"So, what's bother you, and why only me?"

"I told you about my uncle the minister, right?"

She nodded

"And I told you about his missionary work, right?"

She passed me a cup of coffee and nodded again. "This is the one whose wife died of cancer, right?"

"Fast cancer. Same with one of his daughters, and the other's fighting like hell to keep it at bay."

"I'm waiting to see how I help here."

"One of his sons is part of a contractor crew in Africa. Has been for years, subcontracting from multinationals as a trouble-shooter. His dead daughter married a prominent man in Bulgaria. His living daughter got a Federal Reserve job early and easily rose up the ranks. His other son is a major businessman in Montana, now a player in the GOP there."

"Africa, you say? When was your uncle there."

"The 1970s, when Idi Amin was the big man. My uncle was a pal of his, took photos, and got out just in time."

She smiled. "CIA?"

I nodded. "And my father found out by accident a few years after they returned Stateside, when he stumbled upon the photos. My mother knew all this time, but didn't tell me until last week. It came out of nowhere."

"Now I see. So, what can this ONI brat do for you?"

"You already know. Don't make me say it."

"Dad's been busy lately, but I'll see what I can do."

The Harp Incident-12

The second fallout was the transformation of medicine and medical technologies due to the confirmation of epigenetics as a thing. Once that became known as a thing that could significantly transform an individual due to psychological factors, that got suppressed by the governments worldwide right away; they wanted super-soldiers that they controlled, and not free superhumans doing as they like. Epyon wasn't having it; he organized his nascent department to break this information loose, and they did- and without Control saying so. The results were that this too soon got online and embedded into the Darknet, making it impossible to erradicate without destroying the Internet worldwide- a thing that was never going to happen.

The combination of cheap power soon turned into cheap and good Internet access worldwide. That undermined corporate and government centralization through the proliferation of things like easy 3d printing and other technologies of that sort. The Agency picked up on this trend early and used it to our advantage to exert leverage against the enemy organizations we discovered, mapping out and rolling them up in turn- but far more quiet and with far less fanfare. By the time I became Control, Epyon and the other super-soldiers we recruited worked to transform the world into a place I once believed only could ever exist in the more hopeful of science fiction stories.

More than that, I can't say for certain. Once I retired from the Game, and Epyon took over as Control, the Agency had become a true peacemaking organization. Sure, the shadow aspect remained; there remained a need for things done discreetly, and early intervention often nipped problems in the bud well before the super-soldiers became necessary, so the only real thing to worry about now was the possibility of infiltration, either by enemy actors or (more likely) complacency and decadence.

But that's another story.

The Harp Incident-11

The first fallout was that a lot of heretofore secret information had to be revealed, warts and all, to the public. The Squids--The Order--were by no means a Johnny-Come-Lately organization. We had to screw the Establishment to get this out because public knowledge of Squid deeds would be good for the population and the Establishment in the long run, even though many Establishment players and institutions would get hit or destroyed in the short run for reasons both fair and foul alike. The technologies that they produced, kept secret by Squid agents in Establishment institutions, had to be released and spread far and wide so that other long-term threats both to the population and to the Establishment could be readily sorted.

We had to provide information, albeit through cutouts, to public inquiries such as various Congressional committees as well as to their many state-level counterparts and even to many media outlets. Interviews, presentations, and many books had to be rushed out the door; fortunately we had a lot of friends and assets in place to handle this, which meant that not only did we have the chance to vett what we released beforehand but that we also turned this into something that allowed us to generate the necessary revenue required to keep our operations going. All this technology, top talent, and so on doesn't pay for itself you know.

Our people watching for alerts from our other enemies--and we had more than the Squids--also put in their work as they watched distinct patterns of interference symbolizing actionable intelligence that we could investigate. We found out about the reality of many other enemy organizations in the Great Game by watching for these things; this would lead to Epyon's rising through the ranks, and also to the proliferation of super-soldiers as well as other augmentive technologies necessary for otherwise ordinary operatives to be able to compete with them. A new arms race in the shadow world, which would ripple outward into the mundane world, broke out as fallout from this incident.

This also meant that the Agency had to reorganize. We couldn't return Epyon truly to the shadows; like the comic-books that he resembled, and took cues from, we had to recognize that Epyon could be a covert operative but never truly secret and that meant forming an entire department around him and those would come in his wake. When we needed something done, and we could afford to be noisy about it, Department Epyon handled it here on out. Several agents I knew--but none of my team--would transfer over to this department because they were more like him in temperament and would be far better for the Agency there than where they were.

But the biggest change to come would be the revelation that there was a proven, ready-made power technology that made fossil fuels pointless; oil remained a thing due to plastics and other polymers, but Big Oil fell over and died overnight once the patents hit the Internet and immediately got spread throughout the world, especially in the Darknet where fools could not touch it. That was a hard call for Control, but it proved to be best; it screwed a lot of enemies out of key advantages. Those transmitters required power production and transmission far beyond what was heretofore allowed to be known; now that the real limits of such technologies were out there, the geopolitical game shifted away from the Middle-East and the oil-based global economy. Yeah, the Establishment was not happy with the end of the petrodollar, but the new technologies allowed that shift to be a soft landing and the new economic system relied on a balance of major currencies--U.S. Dollar, Euro, Pound, Yuan, and Yen--which held out for the rest of my days.

The Harp Incident-10

Epyon's superhuman power is what made our assault on the Squid's HAARP network a success. We exploited his healing power to ignore the usual limits of human effort that requires bodily rest and therefore the need to pace themselves to ensure that he had about 10 minutes every eight hours in one of our rest tanks to rest his brain enough to keep up with his body. Our teams could act as an anvil and he as the hammer upon which we beat the Squid into submission, and we did just that.

Our assets in the media got into line right quick, both mainstream and alternative, and ensured that we got the message out that the Squid agents were just that and they suckered the U.S. Establishment into being their pawns. This gave the Establishment an out, and they took it en masse, as our people came for Squid operatives deeply enmeshed into various agencies and programs throughout the Federal government as well as that of the several states.

There were hostage incidents, running gunfights, car chases, bombings, and many other incidents that revealed the Squid to be a criminal syndicate dedicated to terrorism as a fallback tactic when the shit hit the fan. Lots of innocent folks died, and they died in horrible ways. Fortunately we saved far more than otherwise would be killed due to Epyon's intervention at the last possible moment- a fact we ensured got into the narrative we put forth into the media.

Control, of course, put my team on the coordination and reserve unit detail. Rolling up this long-running enemy organization, now that we had its entire network revealed to us, was an opportunity that we could not pass up. It took a week of this, but we destroyed all of their arrays and put down or captured all of their members and assets. The governments and corporations comprising the Establishment, since they had that out, gladly complied. The holes in their organizations got filled within a month, barring special elections, so no lasting damage was done.

What did get noticed was the almost instantaneous reversion of weather patterns heretofore used to manipulate the population, especially government and corporate entities, into doing their will. The drought in California? Broken. The "polar vortex"? Gone, for good. The ice caps iced over, and any threat of a massive methane release ended within weeks. The threat of catastrophic climate change had ceased to be a thing, thanks in large part to Agency release of Squid intelligence regarding how this worked and why.

Control also authorized the release of all of the Squid technology that wasn't also held by us, pretty much to seal the deal with the Establishment that cooperating with us was better than not, and we got to retain our shadow status- Control even managed to maintain his own anonymity. Beyond the alphabet soup we remained, now that we made our deal; it had its bad sides, but we didn't care much for the current Chinese regime anyway and we knew that Russia was due to collapse soon also- no point in butting in there.

That said, there was significantly fallout and therefore cleanup operations to be had.

The Harp Incident-09

We kept Carrano under while we went over the intelligence. The arrays, known in the fringe world as "HAARP", turned out to be a Squid operation. Before we turned him over, we hooked him up and scanned his brain using the backup technology otherwise reserved for Special Branch operatives; I'd later argue that this breach of protocol was justified- and get away with it. The reason? Once we finished running through his brainmeats as if he were a miniaturized Internet to himself, we got actionable intelligence about the very arrays in question.

The arrays were weather-control operations, coordinated by deep-cover Squid operatives networked throughout the U.S. Establishment, but not at all intended to be used against other populations. Instead, they were used to manipulate the U.S. itself- a loophole in the array of treaties that did address such things (but they thought it was about cloud-seeding and old crap like that). By keeping various parts of the nation in varying levels of environmental stress, the base players cashed in on insurance fraud at a scope and scale heretofore impossible while the Squids got to set up a global environmental threat through the melting of trapped methane gas in the poles- and they had a super-fast remedy ready to go as soon as they had de facto global power in their hands.

We handed off Carrano and then mapped out the full array of the operation, thanks to Carrano's memories telling us all we needed to know to act on it. As we realized that our jet intended to have us go over the Bohemian Club in California, we knew that this was by no means a subtle operation; this was a combat op from the get-go, and we were air-dropping into a forest. Not an easy thing at the best of times, and this was nothing of the sort. Our goal was simple: to nab a known and well-connected Squid during his visit to the club.

What we figured, but had not confirmed, was that this was a Squid front. Since everyone was a Squid, we were in a free-fire zone and we took that opportunity to cull the opposition significantly. We bagged our prey, and cut a bloodly swath through the rest of them to get a car and get away; we knew where the jet awaited us, so we were in the air once more by the time that Squid-controlled cops and Feds could get to the Club and make any effort to do anything about it.

Once we got back to the Oubliette, we already debriefed the prisoner; the weather manipulation information we got from Carrano got independently confirmed (which would back me up at the discipline hearing after the fact), and we got a better picture of what the Squids intended to do with their plan. Specifics--people, places, properties, etc.--filled in the holes that we had in the information to date made Control a happy enough man; the Agency went on Apocalypse Protocol as we moved against the Squid and moved for the long-awaited extinction of that enemy organization.

Getting everything into place took moving Heaven and Earth, but the Agency has the means and the people to do just that. Even so, we could not do a globally-simultaneous assault due to--of course--the weather ensuring that just enough time disruption occurred that some part of their network did get a heads-up. Some of our teams ran into unexpected resistance, which forced us to deploy our trump card early: Epyon, fully-certified and ready for action. He turned the tide single-handedly, as they could not counter him without countering themselves, and he could be--and was--rapidly deployed and redeployed to where we needed him.

The Harp Incident-08

Whatever the subject's life was before, it's over and so was his legal identity. Control had him declared dead; his new code-name was all that was left for him now: "Epyon".

Epyon trained hard, his powers allowing him to push himself further faster than anyone else possibly could. Under Agency guidance, and control, he acclimated quickly; Jan's preliminary profile of him served as the basis for a complete and comprehensive profile through which Control ensured the loyalty of Epyon to our cause.

Meanwhile, the others and I headed out to track down Carrano and his fellow Squid. Carrano came up in Argentina, so off we went. We caught up with him at the home of a major drug cartel head, so we assumed covers as FBI and DEA agents using international treaties and other agreements to pull off a covert operation in a foreign state in a manner deniable to the Agency. That wasn't the hard part; the hard part was to keep our operation under wraps in a country with notorious corruption issues- amongst other known issues.

Jan and Aaron did the talking, again. As the lead agents, they handled the local officials and bullshat U.S. assets into assisting us- with Matt backing them up on the electronic end. Eric and I did the heavy lifting, as it were; we had to clean up some local messes to buy assistance from the more reluctant--but otherwise friendly--assets, and do it cleanly, but that didn't take long and we kept our shirts tucked in while we did it.

The operation, once we had what we needed ready, went as I expected. We came in at dusk, when we knew that the host would be hip-deep in women while partying with other guests and otherwise playing the Good Host expected of a high-rolling cartel kingpin. Jan worked her way through the crowd to get to the host, while Aaron networked his way towards Carrano. Eric stood by with the getaway, Matt monitoring by way of a drone in the sky overhead, and I was well away watching Jan and Aaron with a rifle trained on the scene.

The play was simple enough. The cover operation was a blackbag job. Jan slipped a tracker on the host; he would later get killed by a missile fired from the drone. I popped one of the high-profile guests, the son of another high-roller gangster there to work out an arrangement from the Golden Triangle to Argentina--heroin for cocaine, as I recall, w/ some guns mixed into it--and in the panic Aaron would taze and take Carrano.

Hours later, as we took off back for the Oubliette with Carrano in custody, taking pleasure in a well-executed plan we got word from Control.

"Debrief from Epyon incidents a bigger problem regarding the arrays. I've sent a flier to take your package; you and your team will proceed to new coordinates."

Well, that escalated quickly.

The Harp Incident-07

Eric and Aaron harried Carrano, wounding him twice, but had to break contact once he dove out a window and into a pool far below. As they linked up with us, I got the heads-up: "Carrano made a scene. Security's on its way up."

Jan, wisely, kept close to the subject and thus under control. Eric went ahead with Aaron and retrieved our car; we piled in and made our way out.

"It's okay." Jan said, "My people and I have a safe place to hide near here." and then kept his head buried in her chest while we returned to the safehouse so he wouldn't know the way.

"We can't keep him under." Matt said, "Not if he recovers that fast."

I put the shield up to divide the passenger seats from where Eric and I sat up front. "Change of plans. Eric, airport. Matt, call Control and let him known we have an Emergency Package to drop off at the Oubliette, then bug out of there- link up with us later. Jan, keep him occupied; you've got to go the distance."

We got to the airport and Jan kept him from paying too much attention. "My friend called in some favors." she said, keeping him close, "We're going someplace where they can't find us- but once we're there, you'll be able to call home."

That was enough. He may be superhuman in body, but between his ears he's still a naive college kid with little real world experience. Jan played him like a fiddle.

We got up into the air, and Control confirmed the Package so we got priority in airspace. We arrived a few hours later, without incident (for which I was thankful) well into the Canadian wilderness at a hidden airstrip where Control met us at the hangar.

"Welcome, son." Control said, shaking the man's hand, "We're sorry to have you out in the middle of nowhere, but things are very dangerous right now and until we've got a handle on the situation you remain a target. While you are quite capable of taking what's thrown at you, that's not so for everyone else- like all the innocent people that tend to be around the places you want to be."

"How long?" he said.

"That depends."

"On what?"

"On how soon you become ready for action." Control said, "You're in the Great Game now, son. Welcome to The Agency."

The Harp Incident-06

Jan successfully got a hold of our subject, and she met him at the Excaliber. Making him talk was easy; keeping him away from Squid Carrano and Dr. Goro long enough to get him talking was the hard part, and that's where Aaron and Eric made their part of the plan work. They kept Dr. Goro talking about himself, and Carrano bragging about how awesome he is, while Jan demonstrated why she's one of our best honeypots. Pillow talk revealed what I suspected: the professor tagged him as an easy mark to recruit, got him alone just often enough to turn his head, and then manipulated him into a situation where he'd be away from family and friends for an extended period of time. The reason? To monitor the weather tracking station in Baja California.

Remember, this kid wanted to be a weather man. He had no idea what was going on there. What he found was a massive array of power transmitters that directly affected the atmosphere in a targetable manner. In short, he found a HAARP array; no, the one in Alaska is not the only one. It turned out that he was there when the last mission I led--which was to take that array out--blew it up while he was present. He had already been subjected to a medical cocktail of untested treatment candidates, and enduring the effects thereof, when the power banks blew up and some of that power surged through the place. That much electricity should have fried him to a crisp, but between his fear of death and his bewilderment at his situation he found himself alive and able to walk--stumble, really--out on his own.

Then he wanted more fun time with Jan. Jan obliged.

Meanwhile, Aaron kept Dr. Goro talking as Goro got back the results from the DNA sample he took from the subject. The long-story made short is that a lot of "junk" DNA got turned on somehow and that not only turned his healing ability into something out of a comic book (which means he's never going to age again), he's been made into a brick outhouse akin to other sorts of comic book heroes.

"We have, gentlemen, the first truly superhuman individual in known history." Dr. Goro said, smiling, "And soon he will be the sole property of The Order."

Carrano cheered. "Hail!"

Aaron and Eric nodded at each other. "Boss, time to break up the party." Matt said, and I broke into the room with my Browning Hi Power in hand- and, of course, with a suppressor attached.

"The Order has expelled you both." I said, and I shot Dr. Goro dead where he stood. Eric and Aaron drew their own suppressed pistols, but Carrano fled out a side door.

"Follow." I said, and they did. I went to Jan- "Get dressed!" I said, "The hitmen are here. We have to go."

The Harp Incident-05

We got into the air before our subject and his Squid handler did, thanks to a quick maneuver by Matt to cock-up their flight plan filings. Only took half an hour to fix it, but that was enough to get on the Agency jet and ahead of them. I authorized the use of restricted airspace to get us there faster, and with Eric on the stick we had no incidents getting to Las Vegas well ahead of the opposition. Matt and Aaron ensured we had the gear needed at the hangar when we got there, and Jan took the flight time to dig deeper into the subject's past to figure out a new approach angle.

Once we landed and got into the Agency safehouse there, we got the tracking up and running. The subject and Squid Carrano landed just as we got online in the safehouse, and their communications revealed that the subject was about to meet a Dr. Goro in a penthouse suite at the Excaliber. While the hotels in Las Vegas are, for the most part, clean of any group tied to the Game that doesn't make them wholly untouched; they'll cater to any high roller, and I do mean "cater" and "any". Dr. Goro operates out of Malaysia, and he specializes in genetics and epigentics- he's renown as a researcher into the genetic elements of disease, looking for treatments and cure. He is also known in my world as being responsible for super-soldier research.

Either this kid's going to end up vivisected, or indoctrinated into being a super-Squid. Neither is acceptable to the Agency.

"Jan, you got an angle yet?" I said, hoping she'd deliver.

"Yeah." She showed a picture of a former teacher of his from university. "Turns out our subject had a questionable relationship with one of his professors, and she disappeared on sabbatical shortly before he made his trip to Baja."

"I found the woman. She's turned up in a Mexican prison, convicted of trafficking." Matt said.

"Drugs?" Eric said.

"Girls." Matt said, "The woman also had ties to NGOs and charities dealing in that stuff. Hell of a cover. Not a known Squid, or for any other enemy org."

Jan sighed. "Well, that explains a lot. This kid already had the recruitment angle worked on him. The best thing I can do is turn it."

I nodded. "Do it. It looks like neither Carrano nor Goro know about the woman yet."

While Jan moved to the other room and began changing, I brought up a presentation: "This is the play. Jan's going to make the first touch, getting us in the door. Eric, you're the wheelman that got her here. Aaron, you're the cartel asset that got her out. Matt's on coordination, as usual."

"And you, boss?" Aaron said.

"I'm her handler." I said, "We're committing to turning this recruitment angle against the Squids. Carrano's likely calling in muscle to back him up; any others on site are Goro's men, and he probably travels with just the acceptable entourage to keep up appearances."

The Harp Incident-04

We entered the Carrano residence under the guise of being Treasury agents. Treasury, of course, because that's where the Secret Service resides and we like to abuse their wide powers- any threat against the President of the United States goes to them, and they check it out. Handy shit for when we need a go-to cover that will work on Fridge Logic.

Jan and Aaron, doing their best Fed impression, handled face contact; I monitored from around the corner, doing the reading-a-thing-while-on-a-bench routine and Eric as the silent and implied threat of force. Matt, having real-time taps on hand, fed Jan and Aaron information as they needed it.

"I've identified the subject. He's in a side room with our Squid friend." Matt said into my ear, "It looks like Mr. Squid is keeping him calm, as he's buying into the ruse."

"Good." I said, "Jan, Aaron- keep the brother on tilt; Eric, mind the side room."

Jan and Aaron work well doing Good Cop/Bad Cop, and the fact that the businessman Carrano has dodgy financials as well as political arrangements make a Treasury visit viable as a cover. While Aaron and Jan kept the man and his staff on hand busy attempting to avoid arrest, Eric--under Matt's direction--scanned the place and did his best Suited Thug work.

"Squid's slipping subject out a window." Matt said.

"I'm on it. Finish the show, and let the fish go." I said, and I caught the subject and Squid Carrano coming out a side entrance. "Got them; fixing."

"Tagged." Matt said as they made their way to a parked car down the block, "So long as we have access to the grid, we have tracking."

Jan, Aaron, and Eric ended their show and left without incident. It wouldn't be until a few hours passed that they'd get any idea that they'd been had.

"Squid's calling his brother." Matt said, "Brother knows what's up with the subject. File appended."

"I'll tail them first." I said, and rolled after them as they drove away. Eric and I traded off several times as they made their way to one of the local airports to board a private jet. One check later: "They're for Las Vegas."

"Stall them. We need to buy time and get ahead." I said, "Then call the caretaker and get going. Everyone to the tarmac."

The Harp Incident-03

The team and I quickly got real-time intelligence on the businessman's residence, and then found out who was inside. Matt used the backdoors in the phones to access the microphones and stream their audio, monitoring movements and access their social media accounts. It turned out that our man was there, and his name was Brian Johnson- a University of Chicago student majoring in Meteorology. At that point, Matt chimed in with some needed information.

"There was a secret transmitter array in Baja."

"Was?" I said.

"Blown up last month, in a raid that the FBI had classified for national security reasons. Something destroyed the entire facility instantly, and the report says that only a single man--our subject--walked out. Doctors at the nearest clinic took him in, but he healed to perfect health within a day and he left."

"And?"

Matt caught my hint. "He was in good health previously, but nothing like the peak-human condition he soon assumed. Open wounds, scar tissue- all healed away within hours."

"He was then seen pushing himself in exercise routines, collapsing, recovering within an hour and then going again. Same with his martial training."

"Where?"

"Cuba. Havana."

"With whom?"

"Our businessman's brother, a mercenary and former Foreign Legion soldier: Raphael Carrano."

Carrano. That name I knew. "He's Squid." I said, referring to one of our enemies, "It's likely that he's already doing what we want to do. Swap to Fed covers. We're busting them."

The Harp Incident-02

I took a nap on the private jet the Agency used to ferry me to Miami, and from there I met the team at the safehouse the Agency established there for operations involving Cuba years ago. Nothing fancy, of course, but it's good enough for our needs.

Waiting there were the four agents I called for: Mark Decker (my IT guy), Jan Falcon (a great honeypot), Erik Redman (wheelman), and Aaron Jackson (my fixer). They had already made themselves at home, and Jan wasted no time in greeting me as I entered the house; she took my bags, handed me a drink, and pointed me to our ad-hoc conference room. While she sorted the baggage, I went to said room and shook hands with the others. Jan then came in, and I had them take seats.

"Six hours ago, an unknown subject single-handedly broke every prisoners in Guantanamo Bay out. The subject is a white man, approximately 20 years of age, blond hair and blue eyes, as indicated in the footage that the Agency provided to you. Our job is to track him down and bring him in."

Just then, Control came on the line. "Good, you're all there. A profile of the subject is complete and now pushing to your clients."

Mark, having set up his control system, immediately took up his end of the matter. "I'm listening. Just keep going."

"Our subject has no prior record of criminal activity and political action has been harmless and useless to date. This incident, therefore, is his debut as an actor of substance. We have reason to believe that his recent month-long excursion to Baja California is the catalyst for this change; however, we want you to engage him and bring him in- and that is why you are in Miami."

Jan signaled. "Ah, I see what the play is; show me his last girlfriend."

I looked over to Matt, and he nodded. Jan got a look at the ex-girlfriend: girl-next-door appearance, rich girl attire, left the subject while he was in the hospital for an older--and much richer--friend with a lock on a corporate position. "Well, it's doable, but if we can't locate him in short order I'm left with outright recruitment as the angle."

"You're authorized." I said, "We can't subdue by force. Guile's required for him- the muscle is for other interested parties."

Aaron, looking on with Jan, piped up. "Mostly normal in his interests, apparently, and politics is under-grad fashionable; something recently put him into a place to go radical like this."

"The story online is contained to the fringe areas, but it's viral within them." Matt said, not looking away from his bank of monitor, "However, I do have his phone's GPS now. The phone is here in town; I presume he's with it. The location has him at the home of a local businessman with ties to Miami's man in the House of Representatives."

I rolled my eyes. Not eight hours in, and already complications. "Jan, Aaron, get ready. Eric, get dressed. Matt, you're holding this down here; I'll take the second set of wheels as backup. 20 minutes."

The Harp Incident-01

It began with an emergency recall from my holiday in Colorado, and no sooner did I get on the helicopter than I get a tablet shoved into my hands.

"The Agency apologizes for the interruption, but this is a Black Swan event at Code Black severity." Control said, "I've taken the liberty of clearing your schedule, as this matter is now your top priority."

That meant trouble, severe trouble. Now, "Black Swan" isn't Agency jargon; that's mainstream talk for "an unforseen event of significance". "Code Black", on the other hand, was jargon and it meant "Crisis Event of Clear and Immanent Danger"- the sort of thing that you'd see James Bond sent in to handle.

"The video provided to you occurred four hours ago, and it would have come sooner but it took that long to recover it and get it to us." Control said, and I watched a video out of Guantanamo Bay in Cuba. I watched a 10 minute long video montage from the camp's security cameras of a blond-haired, blue-eyed young man wearing blue jeans and a plain T-shirt attack the camp and bust out all of the prisoners held there. He got shot more times than I could count and didn't even blink, let alone react or suffer apparent injury. When guards closed to bring him into melee, he tossed them aside like rag dolls- and gently so. He broke secured doors with inhuman ease. He wore no armor, used no tools, and walked out as casually as he walked in.

"Part of the reason for the short duration is that, as part of his assault, he found and destroyed the security command center. That included the hardware that recorded the camera footage. We have a partial reconstruction, and more is in the work. However, review of the attacker showed that he has an online presence exhibiting hostility to U.S. foreign policy, and recently disappeared in Baja California for a month before returning from wherever he went- and has not said anything concrete about that month of missing time."

"Do we have a profile on this kid?" I said, curious to see if Control's done the homework.

"Compiling, and should be ready soon."

"What's the objective?"

"Bring this kid in." Control said, "The cleaners are already on site. You're going to Miami, as we expect the young man to depart from Cuba right away. Make your personnel selections within the next five minutes; they will meet you there."