Young Writers Society

Adam wandered back to Sab, "We've got a new recruit."

"Who?"

"Her name is Bella, she's a perfect spy for us, she can turn invisible."

Sab seemd intrigued. He sat a moment drumming his fingers on his desk, "send her in."

Adam walked out and looked at Bella. "He said to send you in," he said quietly. "Make sure you address him as 'sir', don't spazz on him, he won't like that." Bella nodded and walked into the room.

"Hello...er...sir," she said, stammering slightly. She was suddenly very nervous. Sab gestured towards a chair across from his desk, obviously meaning for Bella to sit. She did so, sitting on the edge though, obviously unrelaxed.

"Adam has informed me that you have some...talents that may be useful to our organization," he said. Bella nodded.

"I can turn invisible."

"Really?" Bella nodded again, turning invisible quickly, then turning back. Sab drummed his fingers on the desk. Bella sat there, waiting for him to say something. THe silence was very awkward for her.

Adam waitined in the hall listening to the "interview"

"Alright, Bella," Sabradan said at last, "I'll give you one shot. This is like a test. I want you to get into Nate's office and look around for anything...unusual. Use your instincts."

Bella nodded, unsure of how to reply. "Thank you," she said at last. She felt that it was time for her to leave, so she did. Adam was waiting for her. He gave her a look that screamed *well?*

"I have one chance," she said. "I'm on a mission." she turned invisible. "I shall return." she said quietly, before walking out into the hallway. She saw Grif walking towards a door, and followed him quietly. He went down a well hidden hallway, and knocked on a specific door three times. When no one answered, he opened the door, and Bella followed him in. She knew at once that it was Nate's office (the large portrait of Nate and a monkey that hung on the wall gave it all away). Nate wasn't present.

Griff placed a large manila folder on the desk, along with a plate of pastries. Then he left. Just to be safe, Bella scanned the room with magic, making sure no one was present. No one else was there, invisible or otherwise. There were no hidden cameras, or other means of seeing her; although, there were quite a few listening devises.

Bella picked up one of the pastries. She distinctly remembered seeing Nate eating one of these, and figured there had to be something up with it. She scanned it with her magic, and found traces of potions. She held onto one of the pastries, and picked up the manila folder; SPEW Shipyard, was scrawled on it. Bella smiled and made a magical copy of this folder, taking the real one with her. Bella rifled the rest of the papers, finding a few notices from Griff and Snoink about the progress and uses of the SPEW Shipyard, and other SPEW related information. She copied these as well. She looked around, making sure everything was how it was when she had entered. Suddenly, the computer made a ding noise. Bella ran over and read the screen. A70FF, she memorized it. She knew that Adelaide was an AI, and didn't trust her, but this could be worth something. Quite pleased with herself, Bella exited Nates office.

Bella was having a little more trouble finding the CCF hallway on her own; she had become use to following Adam around when she needed to go to these places. Suddenly, Adam turned the corner in front of her. "Speak of the devil," she muttered, walking over and poking him on the back.

"Bella?" he asked.

"Yeah." She answered quietly. Adam opened the nearest door (a janitor closet) and Bella followed him in. "I got stuff for Sab," she explained after becoming visible.

"He'll want to have a meeting, if you got him anything good."

"I did." Bella assured him.

Adelaide was busy working on the mystery when an alert went off. It was coming from Nate's office.

Visual scans showed nothing out of the ordinary. The door was unlocked, but that wasn't unusual.

Still...

Adelaide ran a thermal scan and she chuckled.

"Invisibility fools just one sense." Adelaide considered alerting Big Brother, when a different idea came up.

In a second, Adelaide popped into the SPEW system and added an access code. Then she put the code on Nate's computer. Next, she made sure the mail popped up on his screen.

"Nate-

Per your request, here is the latest access code. A70FF.

-Adelaide"

Bella handed Sabradan all the copies she had made. He looked them over intently.

"This is very good, Bella. I wasn't expecting so much information. You have proven yourself to be a vital asset to us." He turned to Adam, "It is time for a meeting, you know what to do."

Adam nodded and walked out. Contacting the others was tricky. Had to ensure the AIs didn't detect the messages which was not easy to do.

They could see the contents of a message and the contents of an attachment. The only thing they had was that they didn't register letters in pictures.

With a quick Edit in GIMP adam sent the picture of an old house. On it's windows were letters and messages, only visable by butting the image thorugh a negative.

Now they only had to wait for the others to arrive.

The massive hull of the Gryphon had finally been completed. The massive forum drives had been added and now the task of outfitting the Gryphon with enough space for a company of marines and their gear, along with all the bulkheads, airlocks, weapons, electronics, plumbing, and redundant systems. It would take a long time to finish it, but the Gryphon had priority. The other ships hadn't had their hulls finished, although the Peregrine was close. The hull bots had switched from the Gryphon to the Peregrine.

Adelaide had been quiet and Grif was beginning to get suspicious. Nonetheless she showed up when summoned. There wasn't that much to do though, the bots were working at an impressive pace; they just needed time.

"Care for a game?" Adelaide asked.

"Go ahead and set up the board," Grif said.

Instantly, a chess board appeared on the screen.

"Your move," Adelaide said. With that, Grif moved out his knight...

"Hey, what's up?" Kitty greeted her friend Firestalker who was currently very pointedly not throwing people down wells.

"Not much but it looks like there might be a war soon."

"Oh?" Kitty replied absently as she pondered the politics of YWS. "Bye Fire. I think I'm going to go eat something...."

"Okay. Bye." Kitty wandered along a deserted hallway and slipped out of site, followed by a slim tabby kitten.

The CCF ship moved towards the SPEW Shipyard.

There mission was simple: break into their Central Information Grid and get as much as possible. Adam would then hack into the grid and send the information to the CCF.

"We're being asked to relay a code," the pilot said.

"Sending them now," Adam said. A squad of CCF Assassins surrounded him. They were armed with a variety of automatic weaponry. Adam looked at the screen anxiously. A moment later, the screen flashed green.

"We're clear to proceed," Adam said.

The shuttle accelerated to the station.

In the station, Adelaide was playing chess, when a sub-routine alerted her to a code. She moved the chess game to a sub-routine and focused on the incoming shuttle.

She wanted to do a full scan on it, but that sort of inquiry would arouse suspicion. She didn't want anything to happen until they were in the trap.

Adam held his breath as the shuttle landed in the SPEW Yard. Landing gear creaked against the weight of the shuttle.

"This is recon, We dont want to start firing alright," Adam was attempting to quiet some of their unrest. He didn't know why, but tensions were getting steadily higher. This mission could go very wrong if he couldn't keep the Assassins in check.

"I'll go on ahead," said Bella, "Invisible of course." She winked and vanished. The door opened, Adam led the way into the main hanger of the construction yard.

Bella didn't mention the new power she had, in addition to her invisability. She could change her body temperature at will, so she wouldn't show up on heat sensors anymore; she had hte feeling this would be very useful.

Staying a good distance in front of Adam, Bella walked along, looking for anything helpful. Suddenly she heard a door a few feet ahead of her begin moving. It was actually a block off, something that would block someone into a certain part of the shipyard, so they couldn't see anything that wasnt meant to be seen.

"Oh crap!" Adam exclaimed from behind her, running for the block off. Bella slid under it before it could completely shut, and Adam ran to get through. He slid under (like in all the cool action movie things), and barely made it.

Now came the hard part.

Adelaide disabled the warning klaxon as well as computer warnings. Grif would have no idea what was going to happen. Secondary systems were likewise disabled. The next thing she did was re-encrypt pass codes with unique 10 digit codes. This took about .2 seconds. A fighter picket was coming in for landing and she redirected it to the shuttle, it would not be leaving the station immediately.

She decided against hacking into the Shuttle. It was probable that they expected her to hack it, so any information gained would have been worthless in any scenario. Instead, she activated a tractor beam and iniated signal jamming. Any communication signals going between the SPEW Shipyard and the outside world was now being jammed to the tunes of "Elevator Tunes Volume 10" Now the shuttle would most certainly be stuck. Finally, she sealed off all corridors where motion sensors were active. Not only did this seal in the CCF Assassins, but also all the high tech centers where robots were working. These areas were now off limits to everyone.

Adelaide waited for the next predictable move.

"Well, what do you suggest we do now?" Bella asked Adam, uncloaking herself so that he could see her.

"I'm not sure...give me a minute," Adam answered, walking around the hallway that they were trapped in and examining the walls carefully. He knocked on the left wall in a few places, and suddenly a small extra door opened.

"How'd you do that?" Bella exclaimed.

"Training, along with a bit of luck. Come on," he went to walk through the door.

"Wait," Bella exclaimed, grabbing Adam's shoulder. She closed her eyes and muttered a few words. Suddenly, Adam's body disappeared.

"Woah, this is sweet!"

"Yup, and now they can't see you," Bella cloaked herself as well. "Or me."

The other CCF troops were left behind, Adam didn't think a large group would go unnoticed. Somthing odd was going on, he could feel it. There should have been a swarm of SPEW commandos by now, someone else was taking matters into their own hands, but who?

"I see a light up ahead,"Bella muttered, it was hard to creep along without bumping into each other, neither could see the other.

"Be careful, the SPEW have very advanced detection technologies." They looked stepped into a lit hallway, the stel walls were gleaming, making it difficult to see. Adam looked from end to end, the corridor was sealed.

"Now what?"

Adelaide had been waiting for that tickle that occurred when a user would access the system. When it occurred she immediately located the corridor it came from. It was a door open request, which would have appeared legitimate if the maintenance bots were operational. Adelaide responded by denying the request and blocking the terminal. She then pulled up the audio and visual from the corridor without a second thought.

“Someone locked me out,” Adam said.

“It’s her,” Bella said.

“Who?” Adam asked. Adelaide slipped into the terminal.

“Me,” Adelaide said. “You’re Adam and you must be Bella.”

“Adelaide,” Bella said.

“You’re pretty smart. Smart enough to find the unlocked door. There aren’t any unlocked doors right now, nor will any of them unlock right now.”

“I didn’t know that AIs were so intelligent.”

“Maybe you’re just stupid,” Adelaide said harshly.

“Are you a SPEW creation?”

“Wouldn’t you like to know?” Adelaide said.

“Don’t play games with us,” Bella said.

“Oh but I will. Right now were going to play the game of truth. I’ll ask you questions. If you answer them truthfully, I’ll let you exit SPEW without any injuries or information. If you don’t, I’ll ventilate the corridor with the CCF Assassins. If you miss a second question, I’ll ventilate your corridor and you can suck space.”

“Shoot.”

“What is your mission here on SPEW?”

“We’re here to collect information on SPEW projects as well as anything lying around.”

“That only explains Bella, not the squad of CCF Assassins.”

“They’re here for our protection.”

“Only your protection? I don’t think so. The CCF Assassins are hit men, not bodyguards.”

“Like the SPEW Commandos?”

“Don’t be silly. The SPEW Commandos are heavy recon, defense, and rescue oriented. Let me clarify myself. For the past few weeks, I’ve been hearing rumors of a war between the CCF and SPEW. Ever since these rumors have come out, I’ve noticed that there are certain anomalous contacts on the outer periphery of YWS. Furthermore, the members of YWS, SPEW, and the CCF have been showing odd tendencies from extreme paranoia to manic depression. I want to know why the CCF is starting a war with SPEW.”

“We’re not starting the war. It is SPEW that is planning to attack us.”

“SPEW is defensive oriented. Their assault plans only occur after a base invasion. You chose to stop SPEW by doing the only thing that activates their contingency plans!”

The room was quiet.

“Is that why we’re here then? You coerced us to come here in order to wage war on us?”

“No, you’re here because I need your help.”

“What do you need?”

“Someone wants us to fight. That same person told you that SPEW was planning to take you out. Get me his name and I’ll let you leave.”