Behind the Bitmask Read online

  As part of my duties, I collaborated a great deal with a guy named Haxabalatnar. Agnus had bumped him around over the last few years, moving him away from technical roles to customer-facing work; he was now the brain behind Agnus’s public relations. I liked him because he understood what made the civilized parts of hell tick, and Agnus liked him because his unique heritage (human raised by chthon) apparently gave him an edge in working with the locals. That put him ahead of me – I was still trying to figure out how hell’s social structures worked. Hax also pointed me to a salon that does a good dye job after I pointed out his iridescent silver `do, so that’s another point in his favor.

  One day, as I entered the security office (complete with an iced coffee and a cinnamon bun from the local Starbucks), Hax intercepted me near a cell of computers and asked me to look at a document recently confiscated from a petty robber who’d tried to hold up one of the local banks.

  “I figured you should know that someone’s placed a bounty on your head,” he told me. Sure enough, someone hoped to pay $100,000 dollars for me, dead or alive. Further inspection revealed (rather predictably) that Sigmar had printed this, distributed this, spent about half the page aggrandizing himself, and didn’t even have the decency to ask me for a good photo.

  “Should I worry about this?” I asked Hax. His mouth twitched as if he were about to smile.

  “Probably not,” he said. “Still, I sent a copy to Agnus. He says we should focus on interrogating anyone who’s been convicted of something more than trying to run more suspects through processing.”

  “Has he told the physical security force, as well?”

  “I would hope so. Don’t know if he’d mention the bounties, but Sigmar must’ve printed enough for the entire city. I think everyone knows by now.”

  Haxabalatnar was right. One of my new subordinates walked in at that very moment. His name was Ryan (luckily, I’d memorized it), and he was a diligent enough sysadmin, but I admittedly found his disposition grating.

  “Charlotte, I’m going to propose to my girlfriend next week. Would it be okay if I turned you in to Sigmar so I can get her an extra big engagement ring?” he asked. I rolled my eyes, but Haxabalatnar took time out of his busy schedule to laugh. I think he was trying to be polite.

  “Nice try, but I doubt Sigmar’s actually planning to pay out if anyone manages to collect on me,” I responded. It seemed like the best way to deal with Ryan’s sense of humor was to roll with the punches and try to counter in a witty fashion whenever possible. My success rate wasn’t perfect, but I was apparently improving, since I managed to get a sneer out of him. He returned to his corner of the office after filling up a small cup of water at the cooler.

  “Do you know if this is a serious bounty, and not just some sort of warning?” Haxabalatnar asked after Ryan had left and I’d taken a sip of my coffee.

  “Either way, I have to deal with more hooligans,” I responded with a shrug. Then I had an idea. “Now that we have a physical copy, we might be able to magically tag and track the duplicates. If we have enough computing power to track that many objects, I could use it to get an early warning system going,” I explained to Haxabalatnar.

  “What if they memorize the bounty terms and don’t bother to bring a wanted notice with them?” Hax tended to ask a lot of questions about what I was doing. They varied in quality (especially since he’s a public relations type who is more concerned with what people will think about our security practices than whether they actually work or not), but I still had to think about this one.

  “Filtering out the chaff allows us to spend more time on the assassins with functioning brains,” I responded. My answers also varied in quality, but I was hoping this one would ward further questions off for a while. Hax just nodded and turned his attention to a stack of paperwork. Marisa came into the office at that moment, presumably to give me a report, so I left Haxabalatnar at the desk he’d claimed and turned to her.

  “Ma’am, we just caught some of the smugglers who were trying to push uninspected recreational drugs into local stores. They’re not particularly high level, but I can set up an interrogation for you if you want,” she informed me. Hax apparently overheard this, since I saw him give Marisa a thumbs up. She returned it. Figures that she’d be interested in Haxabalatnar – he’s by far the most buttoned down and disciplined person I’ve met in this town.

  “If it’s not time-critical, I think we should do it first thing in the morning tomorrow. How does that sound?” I responded.

  “It is not time-critical, ma’am. With your blessing I will schedule the interrogation for 9 am. tomorrow.”

  “Go ahead. Try and frighten the smugglers. I want them coming in nervous and unprepared if you can help it.” Marisa nodded at this, saluted, and left the office. I had the vague sense that I’d just asked Marisa and (by extension) her subordinates to beat the human rights out of our prisoners, but I’ve yet to see much evidence that your average person in hell cares much for individual liberties.

  “Any idea why Agnus does drug checks in the first place? I’d think he would enjoy the tainted stuff more,” I asked Haxabalatnar when I figured Marisa was out of earshot. I didn’t want to get another lecture from her on the importance of upholding the law and morality.

  “Well, he would, but the junkies wouldn’t. He’s just trying to look out for them,” Hax explained. “Besides, Agnus is pretty meticulous about how he takes his recreationals. You probably haven’t seen all the preparations he does beforehand.” This explanation didn’t quite sit right with me, but in our short time together, Haxabalatnar had proven beyond a doubt that he knew what he was talking about. I was still getting used to the specifics of hell, but with any luck, I’d get through this.

  Despite everything, I was still fretting about future assassins trying to end my life in broad daylight. I began to think about how I could defend myself from such an assailant, and brought it up in one of my meetings with Agnus.

  “Already got you covered, Charlotte! I can get you into a bunch of exercise programs at a discount, and I’ve already got my own firing range,” Agnus said, in a voice blurred by the haze of an extraordinarily massive joint. I was beginning to feel buzzed and slightly hungry from the fumes, and I made a point of getting out of there quickly...and picking up lunch as soon as I was done.

  “I’d definitely like that,” I told him. “The training would do wonders for my…”

  I trailed off. I wanted to say (and certainly believed) that a more intensive exercise program would leave me with a sleeker figure, but something told me that wasn’t as important as I’d initially thought. My brain’s fashion pathways were still getting a workout due to my desk job, but after the trauma of my wilderness period, I’d found I was spending less time perfecting my appearance.

  “Your career, I’m guessing, and I would agree,” Agnus interjected. That would have to do; I nodded. I had a sudden, unexplained urge to visit a local tailor. If I was going to overcome my need to constantly primp and groom myself, it would take much more than a few convenient cliched phrases. Agnus was talking about all the new martial arts instructors that had moved to his city in recent years, so that (and any other mental self improvement) drifted to the back of my mind.

  My first gun was a Walther P99. I know that civilians aren’t supposed to have easy access to automatic or even semi-automatic firearms in the USA, but the local laws don’t really apply in your average underworld. Besides, it’s a German gun, and I’m lead to believe it’s a quality piece of work.

  Getting used to a gun owner’s mindset was by far the hardest part of my training. I’d used my fair share of magical projectiles before – they can be finicky, especially on a sluggish computer (or a phone), but with the right setup, you’ve got a powerful, versatile...inefficient weapon. Flinging a blob of chaotic negative energy at something apparently takes a lot of CPU cycles. Guns, by comparison, are astou
ndingly primitive. No transistors inside – just moving machined parts working in tandem to launch chunks of metal at anything you want to kill or destroy. You’re basically relying on physics to take out your target, even if you put an explosive charge in your ammunition (which, from what I was told, was not a great idea with a P99). In your downtime, though, there’s a shocking amount of maintenance involved to keep a gun in good operation.

  The daemon in charge of Agnus’s firing range made me pass a series of onerous written safety examinations before it would even let me touch any of the firearms. After I finally got my hands on my pistol, I had to learn how to disassemble it, inspect and clean every single component, and pretty much learn how to do everything you could possibly do to a gun short of actually firing the thing.

  “Is all of this strictly necessary? I just have to be able to shoot the gun, I’m not trying to take your job,” I’d snarled at the daemon after I’d flubbed a safety check one day.

  “Agnus will be happier with you if you achieve an acceptable level of firearms competence. You may not be intimately involved in physical security, but a little cross training doesn’t hurt,” it responded. Of all the beings I had ever met, Agnus’s firearms instructor had by far the flattest and wimpiest voice I had ever heard. I had snapped at it several times due to the unforeseen difficulty of my training, but it had never raised its voice and never stopped in its course of tepid encouragement. As far as I know, it was incapable of feeling even the slightest iota of irritation. Instead, its lack of a personality irritated me.

  I was trying to get myself back into the right headspace for this sort of learning when the doors to the firing range burst open. Who else would make such a grand entrance other than Agnus himself?

  “Howdy, Charlotte! The guns treating you good? Perhaps I should ask if you’re treating the guns with the level of respect they deserve,” he said before taking a swig of the gigantic iced coffee he’d purchased from the local Starbucks franchise. Judging from the color and overall consistency, it was more flavoring syrup than coffee, but we all have our vices – even if the Lord of Vice has rather more of them than I do.

  “I hope one day to actually use a gun for its intended purpose. Is that close enough?” Despite my efforts, I was still ticked off from what was basically the martial equivalent of janitorial duty.

  “Eh, guns aren’t that useful when you’ve got magic powers. But they are really cool! Allow me to demonstrate.” Agnus gestured at the firearms daemon, who went into a side room and returned about a minute later with two shotguns.

  “These have been loaded for your convenience, Master Agnus,” said the daemon, handing them over to Agnus, who put his coffee-themed drink on a nearby table before accepting the guns. “What sort of targets would you like to shoot at today?”

  “We got any piñatas left?”

  “Yes, there are eight piñatas remaining in storage. I will place them for you. Would you like me to order more?” This question stumped Agnus for at a few seconds.

  “Yes, order a new shipment. Those things are just great.”

  The daemon then disappeared into the side room again. I heard a buzzing sound, and the targets on the range (humans, daemons, animal silhouettes with scoring rings) slid into that special purgatory where used targets go, to be replaced with boldly painted, googly-eyed paper-mached monstrosities and tinny mariachi music.

  “Agnus, those things are evil!” I shouted. I couldn’t help it. I know they were meant to be cute and non-threatening, but titans have a much higher tolerance for the grotesque in their entertainment. Besides, one of the piñatas looked kind of like a platypus.

  “Have no fear, Charlotte! I will dispatch the evil piñatas with my sophisticated weaponry! Stand back, and make sure your hearing protection is secure!” he shouted.

  I had barely enough time to take cover behind a layer of glass before Agnus took aim and pulled the triggers on his shotguns. It turns out they were fully automatic; an overwhelming deluge of shrapnel tore the piñatas and their contents into gibs, tore holes in the wall, and spent the ammunition of the shotguns in only a few seconds. I hadn’t seen such an enormous volume of gunfire since Sigmar’s invasion. Agnus howled in triumph, raised his spent shotguns above his head like an ape, tossed them on the ground (I hoped he’d used all, not just most of the ammunition), and rushed over to the mixture of slag and sweets that was congealing below the ruin of the piñatas.

  “Charlotte, you have got to try this! Hot metal and chocolate go together like coffee and sugar!” he shouted, before cramming the mixture into his mouth. After my first meeting with Azure, I wasn’t surprised by its failure to cook Agnus’s digestive tract, but his latest meal was still far more disgusting than I could handle. I had to gracefully bow out and inform the daemon that I would come back for my next scheduled lesson; luckily, I managed to escape before Agnus started puking everywhere yet again.

  The next time I arrived to clean guns, though, the daemon finally presented me with the aforementioned Walther.

  “You have proven your understanding of how to care for a gun. Now it is time to learn how to fire it-” the daemon said before joy burst forth from my heart.

  “FUCK YES.”

  Okay, maybe my concept of joy is irredeemably corrupt. So what? It was time to finally fire an actual gun. As much as I was pissed off at my instructor, I knew that I couldn’t afford to fuck this up – what would I think of myself if after all this time, I misfired, or worse? After I loaded and tested the gun, the instructor brought forth a fresh target in the center of the range and gestured for me to take my position and fire at it.

  I took a deep breath and sought to steady myself. I brought the gun as close as I could to the center of the target. Was I supposed to visualize something to get myself in the proper mindset to shoot? What if the gun didn’t fire properly – did I know how to resolve such technical issues? Why am I still talking to myself? I pulled the trigger.

  A sharp report sounded, fortunately muffled slightly by mandatory ear protection. Something within me felt different all of a sudden – what was this sensation? Pleasure? Joy? Probably not – I’d come to associate those with my girlfriend, and the thing is, Azure doesn’t make me feel quite like this. No, this is power. The last time I felt this big a rush was when Tracey was teaching me the fundamentals of magic back in college. How could a simple handgun measure up to the world of magic?

  “Good work, Charlotte! You have scored a hit,” said the daemon, snapping me out of my reverie. That might explain it; I looked at the target. There was a bullet hole in the rings, but not the absolute center. There was still a lot of work to do on the shooting.

  “Now, try to hit the bullseye.”

  Bleah. Why did the daemon always have to be like this? I mulled over shooting it...but that would interfere with my development as a sharpshooter. I fired a few more shots at the target, gradually approaching, but not quite yet hitting that bullseye. It would be a while before Agnus let me akimbo piñatas with automatic shotguns.

  The phone in my apartment was ringing. I can’t remember the last time someone called me through the old coppers – ever since I arrived in the realm of Agnus, all my calls have either been video conferences or otherwise fancy internet telephony. I picked up the receiver in just the nick of time before the phone dumped whoever was calling to voicemail.

  “Hello?” I said. The Simpsons episodes aside, “Ahoy-hoy” just doesn’t cut it as a greeting in this day and age.

  “May I speak to Charlotte, please?” responded the caller. Despite the poor transmission quality, I knew that voice!

  “Is that you, Edgar? How did you manage to get my number?” I needn’t have asked. Remember when I first met up with Agnus and told him to reintroduce me if he ever had the opportunity of encountering Edgar Atkinson again? Edgar slowly explained it to me; I can tell he was enjoying it.

  “You still writing b
loated, inefficient spellscripts that take up half your system’s RAM?” he quipped. Same old Edgar.

  “Hey, man, RAM is cheap these days. Use it or lose it, I always say.”

  “Maybe you’ve got a point, Ada. I mean, you’re not dead yet, so anything’s possible. You want to meet up at Starbucks or something?”

  “Sure, let’s do it.” I worked out that the best time would probably be after work tomorrow, and Edgar was amenable to meeting then. Between Azure and Edgar, this was turning out to be a good place to schmooze.

  Since my first time there, the proprietor had discovered a local public radio service funded by Agnus; they mostly played the sort of thing you’d expect to hear in a Starbucks – highbrow talk shows, snooty indie pop, the occasional smooth jazz recording. As I looked around for Edgar, I heard the current DJ wish his listeners a happy 2005. Had the time really passed so quickly?

  At the beginning of 2004, I was still innocently toiling under Aux, and now I couldn’t leave Agnus’s court without having to worry about Sigmar conscripting a kill team to go after me. Other parts of my life had improved, though – I had more income, more job satisfaction, and a titan lover who was proving to be a real daemon in the sack and otherwise fun to have around. Edgar, as an old geezer with little in the way of charisma or real animosity, would be easier to deal with by far. After a few moments, I noticed him take a place at the back of the serving line and joined him.

  “Charlotte! How many years has it been?” he shouted; one of the chthons in front of him dove to the floor, covering its enormous ears at the noise. Edgar dutifully took its place.

  “It’s only been one year since we last spoke. How did you get out of Aux’s service without dying?” I asked, since that had been bugging me for a while. He smiled slightly at this question.