Kharkov

Cairo turns around, leans against the bench by the sink
she takes a tea-towel and dries her hands
some years ago when we still all worked together, we took on a Task
Melbourne, Cardiff and Riyadh realise she’s speaking for their benefit and turn towards her
the Task was to retrieve a single file, the coredata of something called Inverse
we didn’t know at the time what it was, where to get it
the Task came from the Swedish Foreign Intelligence Service
at this point Moscow interrupts
first came from
Cairo nods and resumes
there was a brief coalition with the French/Italian Government Data Consortium
Moscow speaks again
German GDC
Durban also adds
GDC out of Great Britain
Moscow
GDC out of Taiwan
Cairo nods again and continues
Athens Technology, CIA, nothing out of the ordinary. we do our research, travel – most of Europe, Asia, China – Japan
she pauses
in Japan the coalition gets confused. we don’t know who we’re dealing with. they don’t know who they’re dealing with
everyone is in on this pull but no-one knows who’s paying the bills, who’s in-charge
after three months the whole thing stalls, we go to Okinawa
Auckland pushes himself away from the wall drawing everyone’s attention
he goes to the fridge, refills his glass with water
walks to the lounge area and sits down on one of the couches adjacent to where Vitoria and Seoul sit
Cairo asks
am i leaving out too much?
Auckland doesn’t realise she is addressing him
he speaks slowly
sorry? no no – of-course not. i’m sure we can go into detail when we need to
Cairo’s eyes take on a slightly worried look, she opens her mouth
please – go on
the children watch Auckland carefully for the first time
aside from the girls’ conversation with him early the evening before, they had not taken much notice of him
his expression is distant, but his posture seems to be tense, alert and exhausted at the same time
Cairo speaks again
after two weeks we’re approached by a single party, who liaises with us through a single woman
she pauses, letting the children ask the inevitable question
Cardiff is the first to get there
who?
Cairo looks at him
we don’t know
Durban exhales and speaks
and that’s where we should have left it…
he looks like he wants to say more, but doesn’t. Cairo resumes
our budget triples, our original agreement fee is paid up-front, leaving two-thirds remaining for successful completion of the job
Riyadh looks at Cairo hesitantly, Cairo nods
if you already had all of your money, why didn’t you leave?
there is silence in the room
even Durban doesn’t stir
Auckland speaks for the first time
when someone has that kind of financial power and freely uses it, they’re not often asking
Durban flares his nostrils and exhales again through his nose
Vitoria looks at him
bitter at the situation they had been put in
Durban speaks
we didn’t even get around to asking for new gear. tech just arrived, carted in by a crew of noname couriers. stuff not even governments can get a hold of
Moscow responds
or private corporations – most of them anyway
silence again
Melbourne stares
she finally asks
what happened?
Cairo looks up, but sees Melbourne is staring at Auckland
he returns her gaze, but his eyes are unfocussed
there were two more in our team then, ghost class
a pause
Venice – and Kyoto
his eyes dart about the room briefly before seemingly finding Melbourne
to get what we need, we chase information from servers everywhere. moving quickly across the globe, breaking ice on every continent
we end up in Kharkov, in what’s left of northern Ukraine
the file has to be extracted from a stand-alone unit – nothing we haven’t done countless times before
another pause

Venice, Kyoto, Durban and I go into the city, the others set up in a bunker built into the foundations of an old bank
they ran numerous mainline hacks both into the building to help us through, and to other servers around the world connected to Kharkov to mask our actions
Venice and Kyoto were going for the file – Durban and i had to get them through isolated security points in the building, it required us to be separated
a sixty storey building – twenty floors bellow ground-level
half of it shattered by constant shelling during the war
the other half packed with the tightest security i’ve ever seen
Durban adds, subdued
just walking through the place demanded point-to-point hacks on the fly
data, electronics, i was using my pliers as often as my interface
Auckland continues
we got them to where they needed to be
he stops again
the building flooded with soldiers
whether they were aware of our presence or not is unclear
where they were from is also unclear, or even if they all belonged to the same party
for all we know several independent groups attacked the building
they clashed with the local security forces and there was gunfire in almost every division of the building
every room, every corridor
the place erupted into chaos
Cairo speaks again
that was probably around the same time backhacks were launched on almost every single one of our lines
they weren’t terribly powerful, but they were numerous
with the rate of line spawning we were hit with, there had to have been an enormous amount of hardware behind it
we had to keep our channels open with Ukraine until it was over
keeping those attacks at bay took everything we had
distracted us maybe
Auckland stares at her
Durban and I eventually found each-other, but we were lost
between avoiding the fighting and trying to find Venice and Kyoto, we eventually ended up at an open shelled-out area
Kyoto and Venice had just entered the space
we ran out to meet them
he stops
silence
Moscow stares at the floor
Vitoria closes her eyes and clenches Seoul’s hand
Seoul keeps hers open, unmoving
tears slide from their eyes
Durban inhales slowly
gunfire from in-front of us, where Kyoto and Venice had just come from
i don’t know, maybe there was some from behind us as-well
we aren’t soldiers, we don’t know how to fight, shoot people
he stops and holds his breath at the end of his exhale
inhales again
one shot – louder than the rest, and Kyoto –
she falls
a pause
the next one hit me
i turned around and ran

silence

louder?
Melbourne lets out quietly without thinking, then clamps her hand over her mouth
Durban doesn’t seem to notice
was a goddamn sniper