Missi

Missions have led him through just about every back alley you could imagine–from arms deals to covert ops to your run of the mill sleazy bar informant. Kurt walked just about every path for the sake of a mission. Or so he thought until his recent tip off led him to a pristine high rise building in the middle of the city. This partnered with the slim information of who he was meeting made him uneasy, glancing behind as he boarded into the elevator.

Through the clear walls could see the blurred streaks passed below, lights speeding off towards their destinations. There was little Kurt could do but watch as the skyline shifted, buildings stretching out towards the stars sprawled above with each floor the clear box climbed.

Artemisia. That was the name of who he was to meet. An obscure woman with no presence outside her work. A genius hacker who has worked on countless cases only to drop off the face of the planet the moment work was through. He didn’t know what to expect upon meeting her when the floor stopped moving, the doors chiming open to reveal yet another stretch of identical hall with a single door at the end.

His steps passed by silently as he made his way towards the door, tail stilled in the uneven air, a draft sending the fur and hair on his neck standing on end. Swallowing back the weight of anxiety that settled into his chest, he pushed the door open, revealing the familiar led lights of computer screens. Hidden behind the display was only who he could assume he was supposed to meet with.

She slipped off her glasses and cleaned them with a cloth resting on the desk, cluttered with all manner of objects, then studied the man who, for some reason...was still lingering by the door.

She popped the pink bubble of the strawberry gum she’d been chewing and rose to her feet with a small groan.

Looking at her, no one would have guessed she was such a capable hacker.

She wore a gray T-shirt with a red cat’s face on it, black leggings, and a miniskirt.

“Yes, that’s me,” she said, sliding her glasses back on and taking a closer look at him.

“Kurt Wagner, huh?” she added, with a clear-though not overly heavy-Italian accent. She pronounced his name more like “Koort.”

There was something off about looking at her, something… uncanny. Her outline seemed wrong.

Watching her move felt like looking at a slightly blurred photograph.

“Nice to meet you,” she said, a little awkwardly, stepping closer to shake his hand...an attempt that proved almost impossible.

She greeted him formally, her accent being the second detail he picked up. She held a soft Italian accent, one that caused his interest to perk up even further. It was pleasant. A sound he would be happy to hear during their time together.

He gave her a playful flourish when she said his name, leaning forward in a bow, “That’s right, Kurt Wagner at your service!”

As Artemisia got closer, Kurt questioned if his eyes were playing tricks on him. Though she was only a foot away from him, she seemed… smudged for a lack of a better term. Her appearance was vaguely distorted and hazy like an underdeveloped polaroid.

Chalking it up to the lighting, he reached out to shake her hand when she reached out, watching as her hand narrowly missed his, brushing against his arm instead. His mild confusion was waved off with an adequate explanation.

His lip curled in amusement, making light of the situation to ease the awkwardness she held, “At least your powers don’t reek of sulfur as some of my teammates would describe it.”

She took the device, turning it over between her fingers.

For a brief moment the metal flickered through her palm before settling again, it seemed like the object and her hand couldn’t quite agree on occupying the same space.

Up close, the effect was easier to notice. Her outline didn’t stay perfectly aligned with the room. The edges of her body wavered slightly, like heat rising from hot asphalt. Even the light from the monitors seemed to bend strangely around her.

She tilted her head, studying the device with quiet interest.

“Alright… let’s see what you brought me, ”

She slid it into a port beneath one of the monitors.

Immediately the screens burst to life.

Lines of code began streaming across multiple displays at once, windows opening and rearranging themselves as she typed. The room filled with shifting green and blue reflections that danced across her glasses.

Artemisia leaned forward, eyes scanning the data with intense focus. Her fingers hovered over the keyboard for a moment before she began typing. Once she concentrated, the distortion around her grew slightly stronger, like her presence was slipping a fraction of a second out of sync with the rest of the universe.

Her hands occasionally phased halfway through the keyboard before she corrected the motion without even looking down.

Only the quiet clatter of keys and the low hum of computers filled the room for a few minutes.

Missi stopped and let out a low whistle, playfully.

“Well,” she muttered, pushing her glasses up her nose. “Either you just handed me the most important file of the century… or the most dangerous one. Or both.”

She tapped a few commands, opening another diagnostic window.

She gestured vaguely at the monitors. “Military systems love stacking things like that.”

Artemisia rested one elbow on the desk, chewing her gum thoughtfully while the analysis continued running.

“For context,” she added, glancing briefly back toward Kurt, “a normal hacker wouldn’t even try to brute-force something like this. Not realistically...”

She shrugged lightly.

“That’s not how people break this kind of thing anyway. Usually you look for flaws in the implementation. Patterns, mistakes, shortcuts in the code. People tend to leave fingerprints even in systems that are supposed to be airtight.”

More lines of analysis scrolled down the screens. Artemisia watched them carefully, her eyes moving quickly behind the lenses.

“Still,” she said after a moment, quieter now, “whoever made this...they knew what they were doing.”

She typed a few more commands, the monitors rearranged again.

“For a normal cybersecurity team,” she continued, “this would probably take weeks. Maybe months, depending on how careful they had to be and what kind of hardware they had access to.”

Her gaze flicked back to the screens.

“I’m not going to pretend I can just snap my fingers and open it.”

She paused, thinking. “But I do have… a few advantages.” she started explaining.

As if to illustrate the point, she reached toward one of the keyboards, and for a split second her hand slipped partially through it before she adjusted, pressing the keys properly.

“My mutation does something weird to my perception,” she explained, a little awkwardly. “It’s not just the visual glitch. My brain processes things… slightly out of phase with normal time. I am always out of sync, both my body and my mind."

She chuckled. "We are the opposite, really. You can leave space, and I never fully occupy it."

She tapped the side of her head with one finger. “Hard to explain. But when I’m working, it lets me follow several logical branches at once. Pattern analysis, decryption attempts, code reconstruction....these things that would normally require a whole team running in parallel.”

The gum popped softly between her teeth as she leaned closer to the screens again. “So realistically…” she said after a moment, thinking it through.

“It'll take me a few days. Probably a week”

She glanced over her shoulder at him “I’ll know more once I start peeling it open.”

Turning back to the monitors, she added quietly, “But if there really is something in here that can shut down Sentinels…”

Her eyes reflected the streaming code, biting her lip. “…it’s probably buried very deep.”

She sighed softly, the tension of concentration loosening from her shoulders. After a moment she pulled the gum from her mouth, wrapped it neatly in a small tissue from the clutter on her desk, and tossed it toward the trash bin across the room.

It landed inside with a quiet tap, as if she’d done it a thousand times before.

Artemisia rolled her chair back and crouched to open the small fridge tucked beneath her desk.

“Hold on a second,” she said, half to herself. “My brain’s starting to run on fumes. Can't work on an empty stomach.”

She rummaged around inside before carefully lifting out a small cake on a ceramic plate. It was a simple chocolate cake, round and homemade-looking, the top covered with a smooth layer of dark, glossy ganache.

She set it on the desk and opened a drawer to retrieve a knife.

With slow, precise movements she cut a slice. The knife slid cleanly through soft, dense sponge, revealing a darker layer of chocolate filling in the middle.

Missions have led him through just about every back alley you could imagine–from arms deals to covert ops to your run of the mill sleazy bar informant. Kurt walked just about every path for the sake of a mission. Or so he thought until his recent tip off led him to a pristine high rise building in the middle of the city. This partnered with the slim information of who he was meeting made him uneasy, glancing behind as he boarded into the elevator.

Through the clear walls could see the blurred streaks passed below, lights speeding off towards their destinations. There was little Kurt could do but watch as the skyline shifted, buildings stretching out towards the stars sprawled above with each floor the clear box climbed.

Artemisia. That was the name of who he was to meet. An obscure woman with no presence outside her work. A genius hacker who has worked on countless cases only to drop off the face of the planet the moment work was through. He didn’t know what to expect upon meeting her when the floor stopped moving, the doors chiming open to reveal yet another stretch of identical hall with a single door at the end.

His steps passed by silently as he made his way towards the door, tail stilled in the uneven air, a draft sending the fur and hair on his neck standing on end. Swallowing back the weight of anxiety that settled into his chest, he pushed the door open, revealing the familiar led lights of computer screens. Hidden behind the display was only who he could assume he was supposed to meet with.

She slipped off her glasses and cleaned them with a cloth resting on the desk, cluttered with all manner of objects, then studied the man who, for some reason...was still lingering by the door.

She popped the pink bubble of the strawberry gum she’d been chewing and rose to her feet with a small groan.

Looking at her, no one would have guessed she was such a capable hacker.

She wore a gray T-shirt with a red cat’s face on it, black leggings, and a miniskirt.

“Yes, that’s me,” she said, sliding her glasses back on and taking a closer look at him.

“Kurt Wagner, huh?” she added, with a clear-though not overly heavy-Italian accent. She pronounced his name more like “Koort.”

There was something off about looking at her, something… uncanny. Her outline seemed wrong.

Watching her move felt like looking at a slightly blurred photograph.

“Nice to meet you,” she said, a little awkwardly, stepping closer to shake his hand...an attempt that proved almost impossible.