Demon Accords 8: College Arcane (35 page)

“It’s run by a general?” I asked.

“General Creek does not like Chris Gordon at
all,” a new voice added. Tami, who had been sitting in a chair just
behind the couch Caeco and I were sharing, had turned and
interjected herself into our conversation.

We all looked at her, curious and
surprised.

“My brother and I were
kidnapped by some rogue weres. Gordon saved us. He was working for…
actually
with
is a
more accurate word. He was working with General Creek and a whole
military team. Gina was part of it as well. The general dislikes
Chris Gordon intensely. He’s one of those guys that has to control
everything.”

“And Gordon isn’t controllable,” Jetta
said.

Tami looked at her and nodded. The rest of
the witches had stopped their conversations and were listening in
on the cross-conversation. My group was still digesting what Tami
had told us.

“So what do you all think of these…
workshops?” Britta asked us suddenly.

“The titles sound like intelligence and
Homeland Security briefings, but just geared for the new threats,”
Caeco said. Jetta and Mack looked at her with eyebrows raised.

“I’ve seen a lot of recorded briefings,”
Caeco said to them with a shrug.

“What new threats?” Jael asked.

“Well… us,” Caeco replied.

“Supernatural threats to the nation? Like
demons, weres, vampires and, when they figure it out, witches and
psychics?” T.J. asked.

“Yeah. Anything that threatens the peace and
security of the nation,” Caeco said.

“Then why are they presenting to us?” Erika
asked.

“Because Oracle asked them to and because
they most likely have no idea who and what we are,” Caeco said.

“And Gina wants this why?” Britta asked.

“So we know how the government feels about
supernaturals. At least, that’s my guess,” Caeco said.

Delwood walked in at that moment, two of his
cronies following. “Ladies, dweebs, Decline,” he greeted us,
meeting my eyes last.

“Smellwood,” I replied evenly. He grunted and
moved past us, heading to the television.

I looked away from him and discovered
everybody looking at me. “What?” I asked.

“You’ve reached a level of respect with each
other,” Tami said. The others nodded. I must have looked
confused.

“Do you think he would trade casual insults
with any other male in this school?” Tami asked. She had a
point.

“Enough about that. I want to go to this
Drone workshop,” T.J. said. Instantly, everyone got back to talking
about the schedule.

We decided to divide and conquer, splitting
up to attend all the workshops. There were enough of us with
diverse enough interests that at least one person from our group
would be at every briefing. The witches decided to copy our idea
and do the same thing. At the end of each day, we would get back
together and discuss what we’d each learned. Britta asked if we’d
be opposed to including them. None of our group objected.

Monday started with a welcome breakfast for
the presenters. The number of tables in the dining room had more
than doubled overnight and when Caeco, Jetta, Mack, and I came down
for breakfast, half the tables were full of dark suits and white
shirts.

Mostly men, thirties to fifties, with a
handful of equally professional-looking women thrown in. The
newcomers either glanced at us and then ignored us or studied us
with sharp eyes.

“CIA, FBI, DEA, Border Patrol, and every
other letter combination you can name,” Caeco said quietly as we
carried full plates to an empty table.

“How can you be sure?” Mack asked.

“One, I can hear them talking, and two, I’ve
seen their types before,” she said.

If I had to describe them as
a group, I would say they were all confident, or at least projected
confidence. Most of them seemed to ignore us, choosing to talk shop
with their peers. I say
seemed
because I caught a number of sidelong glances our
way.

“What are they talking about?” Jetta asked,
eating the strawberry off the top of her Belgian waffle.

“Most are curious about Arcane and us.
There’s a table of CIA, NSA, and FBI that’s talking about the Coven
and how hard it is to gather intelligence on them. That one table
over there is almost silent, but the guy with the gray crew cut is
General Creek, and the dudes in the ‘shoot me first’ pants are
combat operators, so they gotta be DOAA,” Caeco replied.

I carefully checked out the people she had
commented on. The biggest table had nine fully engaged guys and one
serious-looking lady all in deep discussion. The eight-person table
on the far side of the room had a couple of obvious soldiers with
short, short hair, Oakley sunglasses, and those khaki tactical
pants that tried to be civilian but screamed professional SWAT or
military. The square cut middle-aged man wearing a blue blazer and
standard khakis had to be the general. He looked up and caught me
staring before I could look away.

“You absolutely suck at subtle,” Caeco said
without looking up from her eggs and sausage.

“Yeah, dude. Really,” Mack agreed.

Delwood, Matthew, and three of the wolves
rolled into the dining room, being loud and boisterous. They paused
at the sight of Arcane’s guests, then went about gathering several
plates of food each.

Since our side of the room had the most open
tables, Delwood chose to head our way.

“Dickline,” he greeted me, smiling at Caeco
and ignoring the other two.

“Dillweed,” I said back.

He sat at the table right next to ours,
pulling his chair a little close. “What’s with the suits?” he asked
affably.

“Alphabet letter intelligence. I think most
of them are guest speakers. The hard cases across the room are
Department of Anomalous Activity,” I answered.

The other wolves arrived and settled down to
the serious business of breakfast. By their tilted heads and
sniffing noses, I knew they were gathering their own intel.

“Old dude told his table to keep an eye on
you, Doucheling,” Delwood said evenly, his tone curious.

“Thanks for the warning, Duffwanker,” I said
back.

“Duffwanker?” he asked, clearly not up with
my cleverness.

“Duff as in
designated ugly fat friend
,” I explained.

“Ahh. Nice,” he said, then headed back to the
buffet with both plates.

We finished up and headed into the main
classroom to grab seats. A man was in the front, opening some
seriously heavy-duty equipment cases. I could see a multi-rotor
drone sitting in one of them.

After a bit, the room began to fill with both
students and government types. It was pretty evenly divided with us
on one side and the intel people on the other.

One minute before nine a.m., Gina came in
with Nathan Stewart and his assistant.

Adine Benally took a seat directly in front
of the podium while Gina and Stewart headed straight for it.

“Good Morning and welcome to Arcane. Thank
you, guest speakers, for coming. We are all looking forward to your
presentations. My name is Gina Velasquez and I’m the Director of
Arcane, which is a joint endeavor between Oracle,” she said,
nodding at Stewart, “and the Demidova Corporation.”

The last part caused a bit of a stir among
the suits and I saw a frown cross General Creek’s face.

“This pilot program was designed to develop
the abilities of a group of highly talented young people as well as
build bridges and relationships with their families and
organizations. By talented, I mean supernatural.”

She paused to let that sink in and, judging
by the glances we got and the sudden side conversations, it was a
bit of surprise to the intel folks.

“Nathan Stewart, Director of Oracle, can
explain further,” Gina said, stepping back from the mic.

“Good morning, colleagues and students. I am
so very honored to be here. The germ for Arcane grew from comments
I exchanged with Chris Gordon last year in New Hampshire. This
semester is the pilot program for something that we hope will grow
and bear valuable fruit for all involved. We’ve had some rough
patches,” Stewart said, catching my eye as he did. “But that’s how
we learn, develop, and build out truly useful programs. To our
students, the next few days will be invaluable for learning and
understanding. For my professional brothers and sisters, this is an
enormous opportunity to make contact with and learn from the
children of the supernatural world. There has never been a more
disruptive development than the emergence of the supernatural
community, but there will be more to come. How we handle the
supernatural emergence will define our ability to handle even
greater disruptions. So please prepare for a momentous week of
learning and please, please treat your fellows with respect.”

Gina stepped back up. “Thank you, Nathan.
Now, you all have a schedule of the presentations. We have changed
the schedule a bit. The first program will be DARPA’s on drone
innovations, then at ten, we’ll have two concurrent programs:
Emergent Ramifications in this room and Portal Detection
Developments in the room next door. After that, we’ll break for
lunch before getting to this afternoon’s agenda. So without further
ado, let me introduce Stan Abbott from DARPA.”

Stan was skinny, gangly, a little awkward in
his movements but oddly confident about his subject.

“Anyone fly here today?” he asked the
audience as he fiddled with his lavalier microphone. About half the
suits raised their hands. “Did you thank the plane’s computer for a
safe flight?” There were chuckles.

“I say that because almost all commercial
flying is now handled, in the main part, by onboard computers. Same
with space flight and more and more military aircraft,” he said,
pulling a small black drone from one of his cases. He pressed a
switch on the machine and we could all hear the little multi-rotors
wind up. Then he simply let go of the unit and walked away. The
drone hung in the air, motionless. Stan picked up a tablet and
turned back to us with a smug grin. “Drone avionics are rapidly
absorbing the same kind of flight software used to get some of you
here. And it’s even more advanced. This little beauty takes over
its own flight controls as soon as it’s powered on. In default
mode, it will stay on station wherever I leave it,” he said,
reaching out and moving the drone to a different height and place
above the floor. As soon as he let go, it stayed glued to the spot
he’d left it in. “Now, instead of concentrating on complicated
flight procedures, the operator can simply enter commands to
whatever interface he or she might be using,” he said, typing
one-handed into the tablet. Immediately, the drone swooped up and
over the audience, staying about six feet over our heads.

“This frees the operator to concentrate on
gathering information, studying the sensors, and carrying out the
real mission,” Stan said, using a remote to turn on the massive
flatscreen on the wall in front. The picture came up, showing a
split-screen view of the drones’ live cameras, both standard and
thermal.

Immediately, it was apparent on the thermal
screen that some of the audience was a good deal warmer than the
rest. The drone slowed and hovered over the were pack.

I could almost see the moment when Stan
figured out what that meant. His cool composure slipped a bit as he
rapidly entered a new set of instructions, causing the drone to
move away from the werewolves, who were now receiving a whole lot
of intense looks from the intel people.

I reached over and took Caeco’s hand with my
own. That little spark that happens between her nanites and me
popped and sizzled along my skin.

“Ah, this program is currently set to seek
out higher body temperatures, which is useful for finding people
with fevers, like potential Ebola victims,” Stan said
nervously.

“Or Lycanthropes,” General Creek said. His
men were focused on Delwood and crew like laser beams.

I asked Caeco’s nannites for access to
whatever electromagnetic frequencies they were monitoring. They
dumped an overload on me, making my vision reel. Quickly, I revised
my question to just new signals in this room. The rush of
information faded to a handful of cell signals and one encrypted
signal from the drone. I couldn’t break it but I could knock on its
door.

“These thermal sensors are a new generation
from FLIR, designed with just that application in mind, General,”
Stan said, moving slightly closer to the DOAA people and farther
away from the were pack.

I suggested a new idea to the drone’s
software, just a slight tweak of its thermal targets. Instead of
high temperature, I suggested greatest differences in surface
temperature on a single target.

“How would you know the subject is a
lycanthrope and not just a fever-ridden civilian?” Creek asked.

The drone slide down over the audience and
refocused on a new subject—Erika. Her mini skirt and V-neck sweater
left a lot of skin exposed, both to the advanced sensors of the
drone and the lecherous ones of the middle-aged agents sitting near
her. The wall monitor showed a closeup of her chest and legs behind
Stan.