Chapter Eight
About a week later, Phil found himself ready to do the one thing he absolutely hated more than anything else in the entire world.
He needed to ask somebody
else
for help.
Phil had lived much of his life like he was a mob boss - he didn't take favors, he gave them out, and he did his absolute damnedest never to collect on them unless he didn't have any other option. But this time, this one time, this was too far out of his skillset.
"Linda," Phil sighed. "I think we need to head off site again today."
"Jesus, Phil," Linda grumbled. "Are you sure there isn't anything you can do here onsite?"
"This one's way above my paygrade," he grumbled. "And I'm a bio-engineer, not a goddamn code monkey. I need someone to help me understand what I'm looking at."
"You've got someone in mind?" she said. "Someone you can trust? Someone discrete?"
"I do," he said. "And they're local. Within the walls of New Eden. We aren't even going to leave the town."
Linda stood up, nodding. "That's something anyway. It okay if we do a bit of scouting and recon first, or does it need to happen
now
now?"
"It needs to happen today," Phil said, "but it doesn't need to happen right now. I know you don't like surprises, so I'm going to do whatever I can to make it easier on you. Any time today."
"Where are we headed?"
He handed her a slip of paper with an address on it. She took the paper from him, opened it, smiled and then tossed it into the shredder. "You could've just said. I've got someone on the inside over there, so that place is five by five at all times. You want to go now?"
Phil nodded. "I want to go now." He picked up his laptop, slid it into his bag and they headed for the elevator. Operational security should've gotten tighter in the wake of all the chaos, but instead, it'd gotten a great deal more lax, at least in terms to the base itself. The reason, or so Phil had heard, was that because New Eden was functioning as an extension of the base, so the border security in and out of New Eden had gotten strict while the base itself had relaxed. That wasn't how Phil would've managed things, but it also wasn't his concern. Just six months ago, carrying a laptop out of the base would've gotten him shot on sight. Now, nobody even blinked an eye.
On their way through the security checkpoint (if you could even really call it that anymore), Phil saw Linda sending a text message, presumably to her woman on the inside at their destination, letting her know they were coming.
Phil did wish he knew a bit more about the size and reach of Linda's spy ring, but any time he broached the subject with her, she just sort laughed it off and politely told him it was better that he didn't know, just in case he was captured and tortured. He liked to think she was joking about
that
but she might
not
have been, and Phil wouldn't have put it past her either way.
They got into the Tesla and headed off the actual base and into New Eden, Linda driving which gave Phil the chance to sort of look over the suburb that hadn't existed just a year ago. There had been some of the preliminary mansions, and some of the places like Andy's even predated that, but the nucleus of the town had sprung up and been built as fast as possible by whoever they could get, in exchange for getting them higher up on the pairing priority. Once they had a team of skilled construction workers (which often included their partners), they were willing to do as much work as possible to keep people safe.
If they needed to, there was still plenty of room to expand within the walls of New Eden. Most of the mansions had sizable plots of land covered in trees and lawn right now that could easily give room to second buildings. Some people, like Covington, were already getting second homes built on their plots of land, just places where they could keep all the people in the new weird extended families were expected to have moving forward. Linda was already pushing him to do it at their place, and so he was suspecting Niko was probably beginning to lean on Andy as well.
It was the first time Phil had been over here, but he suspected Linda had been by this way at least once or twice, especially if she had someone from her team placed here. The mansion was around the same size as his own place, one of the mid sized mansions in the area, an automated gate without a guard at it. Most of the places had cameras as their front line of security. Even Andy's place, which was one of the bigger ones, didn't have security staff at the gate.
They brought the Tesla up to the front of the house and hopped out, a woman Phil had seen a couple of times around the base. She was a very fit Latina woman who was still in her fatigues from the base. She'd been assigned here a week ago, but now that she'd been imprinted and familiarized with her partner, she'd started going back to work again. "How's it going, Arroyo?" Linda said to her.
"He's a good dude," the woman replied, reaching out to shake Phil's hand. "Heya Dr. Marcos, how's it going? 2
nd
Lieutenant Rita Arroyo. Don't think we've been formally introduced before now."
"Nice to meet you, Rita," Phil said. "And please god, any time we aren't on the base, call me Phil, okay? The last thing I want is everyone thinking I'm getting a big head or something."
Rita grinned, shaking her head with a laugh. "Not at all, Phil. Not at all. Anyway, I told him you were coming, so c'mon in. Let's get to it."
As soon as he walked into the place, Phil noticed how little they'd gotten settled in. There wasn't any sense of personality on any of the walls, and while the place was huge, Linda had made sure that as soon as they'd settled into their home that his personality was writ large on all the walls. Maybe he wouldn't have done it quite as quickly without her there, but he felt like there still should've been something on some of the walls somewhere.
"It still hasn't settled with me that this place is mine," Eric said to him as he met him at the door to the living room. In terms of coders, Andy's former roommate Eric was one of the sharpest people Phil knew. "You were thinking I hadn't decorated yet."
"I might've been."
Eric smirked. "You were, and it was obvious, Phil. I don't mind, because you're right, I haven't decorated yet. Andy and Ash said the same thing when they were here yesterday, so I'm not letting anyone else over here until we spice the place up some."
They moved into the living room, one of the living rooms anyway, and the inside actually had some personality to it, a few large pictures hung on the wall, landscape photos that Eric had taken on vacation of the years. They'd been in his bedroom in the old place, but here they seemed much more fitting.
"See?" Phil said, gesturing to the walls. "You've gotten a start in here."
"Yeah, well, I...
we
spend a lot of time in here, whether it's watching tv or while a handful of us are working. You know us, code from just about anywhere," he said, sitting down next to Lily on the couch. She looked pleased to see Phil, but hadn't gotten up from her seat, her laptop in front of her clearly vexing her in multiple ways. "Lil, say hi to Phil."
"S'up Phil," Lily said, not looking up. "Kill anybody lately?"
