5Part 1
Dark. Hard. Cold. Empty. Numb.
"Okay, let's see... Choose Clockwork Angel."
Eyes open. Can't move. Empty gray room.
"Starting now."
"Hello?"
"Whoa! What was that?"
"Who's there?"
"Nobody, idiot."
"Who are you?"
"There's nobody else! Empty spawn room, hello! Okay, let's move."
Body moving on it's own. Gabriel sat up, scrambled to his feet, and turned to face the door, but he had no more control over his movements than a puppet on strings.
"What's happening?"
"Nothing," the voice replied absently. "Geez, this character is paranoid."
Character? What—Gabriel's legs started walking forward again. His chip wasn't working, at least not how it ought to work. He could feel the signals bouncing around his brain, but they were translating to motor movements, not visual data—and someone else was controlling those movements.
"Okay, let's get out of here."
Wherever here was; Gabriel walked toward the door, but his trajectory was off by a few inches—close enough, when one was dealing with computer graphics, but in the real world, Gabriel smacked into the wall, unable to stop himself. The controller still pushed him forward.
"Come on! Go out the stupid door!"
Gabriel felt himself jumping against the wall in a juvenile attempt to overcome graphics.
"I can't!" he called to the voice in his head.
"It's right there!"
"I can't!"
"Yes I can! Stupid graphics!"
"No I can't! You need to move me over!"
The frantic movements stopped. Everything was so silent, Gabriel could hear the hiss of the microphone.
The voice came back, much smaller.
"Wh-wh-who is this? Where are you?"
"My name's Gabriel, and—" he couldn't move his head, but Gabriel was familiar enough with the sort of places that had rooms like this one. "I'm in some sort of bunker. Who are you, and where are you?"
"I-I, um, I'm at home... On my console... My name's Dani. Wait-Gabriel? You're Clockwork Angel?"
"Apparently so."
"Ohmigosh, you're a real person?"
"And you're controlling me."
"Agent Neal," Lillian didn't even use a hint of Riley's first name, which was not a good sign. "You mean to tell me Gabriel has been completely gone for over twenty-four hours and you have done nothing?"
"I didn't know he was completely gone! The note said he was taking the day off and going dark for a day. If I had been there when he left I could have found out where he's going, but I wasn't!"
"Nelson!" Lillian barked. "Tell me you've got something!"
The young man's pale face dripped with sweat as his eyes and fingers flew over the screen. "I'm still searching for his signature anywhere in the vicinity, but I can't find it!"
"He has a microchip in his brain, for crying out loud!" Lillian seethed. "That sort of thing doesn't just go dark!"
"I've got the security cams from outside his apartment," Chris announced.
"Pull them up," Lillian ordered.
Chris transferred the streaming image to the display screens.
"All right, now back it up till we see Gabriel," she said.
Everyone kept their eyes fixed on the screens as people flowed backwards in and out of the building.
"There!" Riley cried.
Chris stopped the playback. Sure enough, Gabriel Vaughn, the "Clockwork Asset," clearly entered his apartment building at six PM on the night of April 17th—two days prior.
"Okay, he was there that night. I checked in at eight, like I always do," said Riley.
"Did he seem like there was something on his mind?" asked Lillian.
"What, like a chip?" Riley retorted. "No; we debriefed, said goodnight, and that was it."
Lillian faced the agent and stared her straight in the eye. "And the next morning—"
"I called at six AM, and when he didn't answer, I went over there and found the note."
"Where was the note?"
"Kitchen counter, along with his cell phone. He knows I have a key."
"Do you have it with you?"
"Yeah." Riley pulled the slip of paper out of her pocket.
Lillian accepted the note and read it. "Riley, I've decided to take advantage of my vacation and spend the day out in the wilderness—don't worry, I'll play it safe. I'm leaving my cell, but if something comes up, Lillian will know how to find me. —Gabriel." She tossed the paper onto the desk. "Well obviously he has enough faith in our techs that he assumes we can just find him wherever he goes!" She shot Nelson a withering look.
"Normally, yes, that would be true," Dr. Cassidy agreed. "But Gabriel's signal is no different in kind from the signals he accesses and processes. Like any cell, Internet, or satellite signal, it can get crossed or piggybacked or—"
"Hacked?" Riley supplied, earning her a death glare from the director of CyberCom.
"Find him," Lillian seethed through clenched teeth.