Double-Blind: A Modern LITRPG

Compartmentalizing was the only way forward.

In making the connection between Matt and Myrddin, Miles had done the status quo equivalent of taking a sledgehammer to a load-bearing wall. It left me on shaky ground, and heightened the importance of maintaining the layers of insulation that remained, while putting as many as I could in place.

So as much as I would prefer relying on people I knew—the strike team would have been perfect for this—Kinsley's nascent "Gray Mercenary" contingent offered a safer alternative.

The lax gun-control laws, low cost of living, access to vet services, and a laundry-list of other positives made Texas something of a hotspot for ex-military retirees, regardless of age. With plenty of service-friendly employers around, many made the transition to civilian life with little issue. Others used the state as a temporary hub, leveraging their connections to land a gig in the private sector.

Kinsley had been snapping up the latter at an accelerated rate. They were a godsend in the early days, when you could count the entire Merchant's Guild roster on one hand. As Kinsley's popularity skyrocketed, the membership of the guild along with it, she'd continued to recruit them. Nowadays the mercenary population of the Merchant's Guild outnumbered the Users 2 to 1. There were no tangible problems yet, but I had a decent enough grasp on history to identify the potential downfall.

When we finally addressed the topic, I let history make the point for me. Carthage. Renaissance era Italian city-states. As always Kinsley was quick on the uptake. By the time I got to the Byzantine Empire, she was already working through possible solutions.

The first step was to bolster User recruitment. An average User wasn't much of a match for a firearm-packing mercenary. Some of them were, however. And as I knew entirely too well, it was difficult to evaluate how much of a threat an individual User posed before they sent their exploding-projectile-of-ear-drum-bursting-skull-fuckery on direct course to your unprepared face.

This was more of a long-term investment, as many of the stronger Users were already spoken for, and recruitment would slow to a crawl. The second, more immediate step was to establish the Grays. Cultivate an internal division of hired guns, pulling from a list of individuals who excelled in their respective fields and outperformed their peers. They went through rigorous evaluation that ensured anyone who made it through had a wealth of expertise and a minimum degree of social savvy. Unlike a traditional military contingent, the Grays had no chain of command. Each Gray Mercenary kept their original place in Kinsley's existing defensive structure, answered to their original leadership, got paid exponentially more, and most importantly, kept their mouths shut. In normal times, they acted as watchdogs for dissidents among the mercs, listening for dissatisfaction and any whisper of a coup and relaying potential problems to Kinsley.

And when there was a situation that required discretion above all else, we had plenty of options to pull from. I didn't know what number she'd landed on. I'd counseled her to keep the amount sustainable, but more than anyone else in the dome could feasibly afford to pay.

There were plenty of rumors about the internal recruitment, even the name. But that was where the story ended. No one knew what the Grays were, and everyone who'd undergone the evaluation claimed to have failed.

Which meant whatever the final tally, it was enough.

I'd met up with my reinforcements a few blocks away from Miles' address. Not the house in my region, to be clear. If there was even a snowball's chance in hell he was keeping something critical there, that chance had flown out the window the moment he directed me to it during the transposition.

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No, this was his flat. I'd picked it up through my surveillance, monitoring his movements on and off for the last few months.

The two recent additions went by their first names—Chuck, the tech guy, and Jackson, the recon guy—both met me with a degree of caution. The dark-green Graham's Pest Control jumpers they both wore weren't exactly intimidating, but the fact they were dead-faced and expressionless, perfectly unreadable and guarded, more than made up the difference. Probably anxious over learning what, exactly, they were being paid so much to do.

Once I confirmed who I was and explained what we were doing, they relaxed a little. Not entirely, but enough to give the sense that compared to whatever they'd been expecting, breaking into a federal agent's home and gathering intel was practically a walk in the park.

Which, I suppose, was a little disturbing in its own way.

They seemed to mostly disregard me, which worked better for my purposes. I slipped into a matching jumper in the back of the van, listening to the conversation as I changed.

"Man, all that buildup for this?" Chuck laughed. "Gonna sleep easy for the first time in weeks." There was a whisper of specific southern twang to his speaking pattern, something I most typically associated with hillbillies in more rural areas of the state. He'd gone to great lengths to suppress it, which was atypical.

"Dunno." Jackson took a deep draw from the cigarette and blew the smoke out the cracked window. "Feds can be a pain in the ass. Some of 'em are normal, but I've run up against more than a few who think they're secret agent dipshit. Searching other peoples' shit gets in their heads, makes 'em think a little too hard about how they'll know if someone's doing the same to them. They go full Winchester. Which makes this a good time to reiterate, to both of you, don't touch a goddamn thing until I'm done taking pictures." He pointed his fingers holding the cigarette at Chuck. "Goes double for your pasty ass."

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Chuck stared at Jackson across the dashboard. "You realize that me being here means I passed the evaluation, right? Not my first day in retail."

"Maybe that thing on your neck makes me question your judgment."

"It's not—" In a very practiced manner of a person who'd had this conversation too many times, Chuck threw his head back and sighed. "Not what you think. It corners to the left, not the right. A symbol for—"

"Wealth and fortune. I know."

"Then what the fuck are we even talking about?"

"The wisdom of a man who walks into a tattoo parlor—probably the second or third, because there's no way it didn't take effort to find someone willing to do it—slaps that design down on the counter, and says 'this is the one. Put it on my neck where the whole damn world can see it and make their own assumptions.'"

"Great team building." Chuck rolled his eyes. "First time you've said more than two words and I hate your guts already."

"'Who cares if it occasionally gets me punched in the face? If I get called out by someone with reasonable concerns, that's a chicken-dinner opportunity to play the victim.'" Jackson mocked.

I zipped up my jumpsuit, and once again wished for the strike team. "Let's just cut the chatter before this gets nasty."

"Yes sir, Mister Client sir," Jackson said indifferently, flicking his burned-down cigarette butt out the window.

I ignored the jab and glanced at Chuck. "You're gonna cover that shit up, right?"

"It's—" Chuck started.

"I don't care. It's a distinguishing characteristic that looks a lot like the sort of thing people remember. Furthermore, it's aggravating your associate. For obvious reasons. You're not being paid to start shit. Stop being a dick."

Chuck grumbled but followed instructions immediately, withdrawing a square bandage from his pocket and slapping it on his neck. The fact that he just happened to have a bandage on hand that covered the tattoo's dimensions meant he likely intended to from the beginning, just had a bad habit of digging his heels in when questioned.

With the glaring issue removed, Jackson's focus turned to me, as I slipped a disposable pair of gloves on. "Latex?"

I paused. "All I had on me. That a problem?"

"If the fed's savvy enough to spot powder residue on the shit you're not touching? He'll freak. Toss 'em." He inclined his head towards the back. "Nitrile in the box."

That was fine. Convenient even. I swapped the gloves and took a seat, as Chuck pulled the van out and navigated towards Miles' flat. "Are we sure this isn't too on the nose? The pest control van?"

Jackson's mouth drew tight. Chuck snickered. The only thing they seemed to dislike more than each other was taking orders from a third party.

After a moment, I added acidly. "It wasn't rhetorical."

"Look out the window. How many vans like ours do you see out there?" Chuck asked. Now that he mentioned it, there were plenty. Two parked to the side, one several cars in front of us. When I said nothing, Chuck continued. "Bugs were already gonna be bad this year. And that was before the alien-invasion-larping-clusterfuck completely disrupted regular services. Midtown in particular is laden with 'em. Flies, bedbugs, roaches. Shit's out of control."

"Might as well be wearing ghillie suits." Jackson agreed, studying me in the rear-view. "Don't spend much time around midtown?"

"Less than I'd like," I offered noncommittally.

"Uhuh."

As we grew closer to the destination, I felt a sense of anticipation growing. Anxiety along with it.

"So what do we do when we get there?"

"You do nothing." Chuck clarified. "Just stay in the back and follow our lead."

"Slight chance they have their computers up, but they probably won't. We park somewhere, walk straight up to the front desk, autograph their sign-in sheet and let them know what flats we're servicing. None of which belong to the target," Jackson recited.

"Following so far."

Chuck cut in. "Place uses swipe cards. Fancier looking than what you'd get at a hotel but just as exploitable. Once we have one, I'll wipe it and replace the previous authorization with the one we need. I'll need complete silence until I've swept for bugs. Digital, of course."

"And he can't do that 'til I've done my thing. So it'll be the two of you, standing there with your dicks in your hands until I signal, because I'm not catching heat from some fed."

We both murmured agreement, though Chuck's was far more begrudging. As curious as I was about Jackson's "thing"—more specifically how long it would take—it was tense enough in the van that I let it pass. Chuck struck me as more passive instigator than active. Ready to jump in as soon as someone said something he didn't like, but professional enough that he lacked the onus of shit-stirring in a vacuum.

As we entered the building, my nerves grew. Part of me wished there was something that would turn us away. A suspicious man on the lobby couch, completely fixated on the screen of his unconnected smartphone. A receptionist that gave us a hardline examination, unable to find any existing appointments in the off-line scheduling app on his miraculously functional computer.

But none of that happened. The flat's lobby was unremarkable, ordinary, and empty. Painted in inoffensive off-whites and besotted by clouds of flies. The computers were down, as my newly gained help expected. And the receptionist was too busy squinting and swatting away at encroaching vermin to hone in on anything but the pest control jumpers.

It took a matter of minutes for us to wait for the receptionist to hand over a scan card, navigate the hallway, and ascend a rickety elevator that juddered upward, struggling under a combined weight far below its placard's alleged max capacity.

And then we were through.