FGI 5: The Master of Metal
Autorzy
F. R. Black
Lektury
1,5M
Rozdziały
45
Things are not going well at Fairy Godmother Inc. The workplace harassment, stealing of personal and very intimate objects (someone's underwear!!!), the general disregard and hatred for each other… Every day it seems like it’s getting worse. Zoya Romanova has had enough and she doesn’t care who she takes down with her—not even that pretty-boy boss of hers, Pierce.
Chapter 1
Book 5: Master of Metal
You might think the Fairy Godmother Initiative is all glass slippers and happy endings. You're not wrong, exactly—we do send agents into other worlds to handle fairy tale crises. But what they don't see is the tech deck three levels underground, where people like me keep those agents alive while they're out there playing princess.
I've been doing oversight for FGI for eleven years. I monitor vitals, track mission parameters, and make sure nothing goes catastrophically wrong. It's usually straightforward work. Usually.
The first alert hits at 3:47 in the morning.
I'm already awake—I'm always already awake at 3:47 in the morning, because my brain runs on its own time zone and it is never the one I'm living in. I'm at my station in the lower tech deck of FGI headquarters, half a mug of cold coffee in one hand, a diagnostic readout scrolling across three screens in front of me, when the alert light on panel seven goes from green to a color I have never seen before.
It is not red. Red would be manageable.
It is white.
Blank, clean, featureless white. The kind of white that means the system cannot classify what it is looking at. I have been working for FGI for eleven years, and I have never seen panel seven go white.
“Zoya.” The voice of a junior tech crackles over my earpiece. Her name is Polly, and she has been on the desk for four months. She sounds like she might cry. “Zoya, I've got a white flag on—”
“I see it,” I say, already pulling up the source. “Which girl?”
“Agent Alicia. She's been in for three weeks. Her personal agent is—Zoya, her personal agent is not responding on any channel.”
“Pull up her last transmission,” I say. My voice is very calm, but underneath the surface, I’m starting to panic. Things have gone wrong on FGI missions before, sure, but never like this.
The transmission comes up. I watch it once, then again. Then I set down my coffee.
It sounds like Alicia’s agent, Bennie. The voice is perfect—he’d pass every authentication check we have. But I've listened to thousands of hours of agent transmissions, and I know how people talk when they're tired, scared, or lying. This isn't any of those. The words string together in a pattern that's just slightly off, like someone who learned English from a textbook instead of from living. It's Bennie’s voice, but something else is wearing it.
Something has managed to bypass FGI’s digital security.
And it has been able to access the FGI network through Alicia’s agent for God knows how long.
Here's what you need to understand about personal agents: they're not walkie-talkies. When the girls go into the field, we always send a personal agent with them. They track vitals, send emergency extractions, and most importantly, it means they're never truly alone out there. Personal agents are vital, because they are the direct connection between the FGI and the girls out in the field.
It also means that whatever got into Alicia's connection has had a direct route into FGI's entire network. If it's been listening, it knows everything. If it's been mapping our systems, looking for weak points…
I don't finish that thought.
“Where are the other girls right now?” I ask.
“All six deployed agents are currently active, Zoya. All in the field.”
“All six personal agents still connected to routing hub?”
A pause. “…Yes.”
I close my eyes for two full seconds. Six personal agents. Six open channels. Six possible entry points, all routing through the same hub, all potentially compromised, all potentially letting something in that should absolutely not be in here.
“Polly,” I say, very quietly. “I need you to flag this as a Tier One Internal Breach and stay on your panel. Don't touch the routing hub. Don't do anything to the routing hub. Do not let anyone touch the routing hub until I tell you it is safe.”
“A Tier One? Zoya, that's—we have to wake up Pierce—”
“I know what a Tier One is.” I am already moving. “Flag it, stay put. I'll handle it.”
I handle it the way I handle most things that need handling immediately, which is to say recklessly and with absolutely no authorization from anyone above my pay grade. I have been working on this with my therapist. It still needs a lot more work.
The routing hub is three levels down. I take the maintenance stairs because they are faster and because the elevator has a camera and I would prefer that no one see me do what I am about to do until after I have already done it. My therapist has told me repeatedly that this impulse—the act first, ask forgiveness later impulse—is not a healthy coping strategy. My therapist has also never had to defend FGI headquarters from a digital intrusion at four in the morning, so I consider us roughly even.
I reach the hub room, badge in. My hands are shaking slightly as I stand in front of the control panel.
What I'm about to do isn't supposed to be possible. The system is designed to prevent it—multiple fail safes, senior authorization required, all of it specifically to stop someone from doing exactly this. Because disconnecting all six personal agents at once means cutting off six women in the field. No backup. No extraction. No communication.
In the worst-case scenario, it means I'm about to kill six people.
But if I don't do this, if that thing keeps spreading through our systems…
I think about the six girls out there.
I think about what happens if this thing keeps going.
I pull up the emergency override panel, enter my credentials, and then enter Pierce's credentials, because the override requires senior authorization and Pierce is asleep and I am already here. I will feel terrible about this later. Right now, I feel very focused.
The system asks me three times if I am sure.
Each time, I say yes.
The routing hub goes dark.
All six personal agent channels sever simultaneously. Six operatives in the field just lost access to their lifelines in the same instant with no warning. I will be apologizing for this for a very long time. I am aware of this. I do it anyway.
The white light on panel seven goes out.
I stand in the silence of the hub room and breathe.
It takes approximately four minutes before the door opens behind me.
I do not turn around. I already know who it is. There is only one person in this building who moves at that particular pace—unhurried, deliberate, wearing what I can only assume is a flawlessly pressed suit at four in the morning because Pierce Charming does not own casual clothing.
“You used my override credentials.” He doesn’t sound accusatory, necessarily. Just stating a fact.
I turn around to face him. “I needed senior authorization.”
“You could have woken me.”
“You were asleep—there wasn't time.”
A pause. “You could have woken me,” he repeats, but the tone is different the second time—less accusation, more something he is obligated to say for the record. He knows. He always knows. He is maddening for precisely this reason.
He moves past me to look at the panel. “Well, it’s good that you’re here. There's been a change of plans.”
Something in his tone makes me go still.
“What kind of change?” I say.
Pierce picks up the diagnostic tablet from the console and scrolls through my readout. He does not answer immediately. He never answers immediately when the answer is something he knows I won't like.
“There is a possibility that this will happen again. We need someone inside who understands what they're protecting. Someone who knows FGI architecture well enough to see an intrusion coming before it lands.”
I know where this is going before he says it.
“No,” I say.
“Zoya—”
“No. Pierce. I run oversight. I am very good at oversight. I have no interest in going into the field, and I especially have no interest in—”
“Your name came up,” he says simply. “In Fate's projections. Three separate reads. I simply assumed you wouldn't be interested, but—”
“You'd be right. Pierce.” I cross my arms. “I love my job. I have no interest in finding my 'one true love.'“
“That's what they all say.”
“I mean it.”
“They all mean it too.”
I open my mouth. I close it.
“Sleep on it,” Pierce says pleasantly, as if this is a minor administrative decision and not my entire life. “We'll talk at a more appropriate hour.”
He leaves.
The thing about Fate's projections is that they are never wrong about the destination. Only about how much you're going to hate getting there.
