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  Project Phoenix

  The Dragon’s Dream Saga, Book 1

  by

  D.C. Fergerson

  © 2018 D.C. Fergerson

  All rights reserved. No portion of this book may be reproduced in any form without permission from the publisher, except as permitted by U.S. copyright law. For permissions contact:

  To Cat and Leanna, my girls.

  To Michelle, with the eyes of an eagle.

  To Mom, always showing me off.

  Table of Contents

  Out of the Shadows

  Dare to Dream

  A Band of Killers

  The Feedback Loop

  No Sanctuary

  Johnny Clean

  The One That Got Away

  Map of the Land

  In The Lion’s Maw

  Fading Memories

  Branching Paths

  Children of Earth

  Shell Game

  Chasing Ghosts

  A Shot in the Dark

  From the Ashes

  Weathering the Storm

  Father Figure

  Growl and Roar

  By Any Means Necessary

  Project Phoenix

  Servants and Masters

  Redemption

  The Gift

  About the Author

  Out of the Shadows

  A single drop of sweat trickled down her temple. One twitch, one move, and her Apex Camouflage would make an adjustment. It would be subtle, but the naked eye could detect the shift. At the moment, she appeared as part of the gray marble wall. The two security guards were so close she could reach out and touch them. There was no way they wouldn’t notice.

  She checked out their gear - all top of the line, the best Bauer Securities could supply. They were covered in head-to-toe gray body armor plating over a black jumpsuit. They wore helmets with a black visor, outfitted with infrared and thermal detection. The Apex suit prevented them from seeing her with their own eyes, and her magic kept her invisible to the technology.

  Her muscles were getting tired of holding the position against the wall. Out of all the places to have a conversation, these two guns for hire had to post up two feet away. The infiltration was going fine until they showed up. Her right hand held position inches from the pistol holstered at her hip. She never needed to use it before and she didn’t want to start now.

  “Alright, man,” a guard said. “I’m gonna hit my rounds.”

  She clenched her jaw in anticipation.

  “I’ll come with,” the other replied.

  The pair went down the corridor, past the server room doors, to an elevator at the end of the hall. The door chimed as it shut. She let out an exasperated sigh, a breath she held forever. With a step away from the wall, her bodysuit shimmered as it readjusted the mirror-like camouflage to match her new position. She moved her arms, stiff and weary. The suit felt tight from sweat and heat. Even her hair hurt under her mask.

  A soft beep sounded in her earpiece, as it had every two minutes since she went silent. She reached up and pressed the comm button.

  “I’m clear, go ahead,” she said.

  “Are you alright, Echo-2?”

  She rolled her eyes. She hated the code names almost as much as the fictitious names. She had been Kathleen O’Malley and Klara Schmidt over the past week. She couldn’t remember the last time she responded to Cora Blake.

  She double-checked both ways down the hall before she spoke too soon. “I’m fine. Some jokers decided to slack off within arm’s reach of me. How much time left in the window?”

  “Six minutes,” a second, younger voice chimed in. “You must love cutting these close.”

  Cora walked to the server room door, saying, “You know me, Control. I wasn’t going to retire without a chance to throw it all away.”

  She pressed a gloved thumb to the lock beside the door. With her free hand, she pulled off the hood of her suit, letting her jet black hair cascade down her shoulders. The air around her carried a slight chemical smell, like a hospital. She glanced over the sophisticated metal arm across the front of the door and winced. Leaning her head forward, the door’s retinal scanner came to life, moving along a track to match position with her eye. The only thing worse than the light from these lasers was the contact lens she had to wear to fool it.

  “Retinal in process,” she said.

  “Almost done on the thumb scan,” Control replied. She could picture Drake at his keyboard, typing away at his holographic keyboard and absently scratching at his scraggly, patchy beard.

  Tiny lights danced on the thumb of her glove, then faded. The lock panel lit up green, and the door clicked. Cora turned the handle and went to work, surveying the room. Rows of metal racks stacked floor to ceiling, a black box on each shelf. Bundles of cables chained them together, while LED lights twinkled in random patterns. A sticker labeled every machine on every shelf with a long string of numbers and letters. At least they were alphabetized for her. She moved into the room and let the door shut behind her. Three rows over, she walked down the aisle, repeating the target to herself in whispers.

  “C430A9,” she breathed. “C430A9.”

  Her finger traced down the stickers as she skimmed through them, side-stepping. Cora’s other hand went to a pocket and removed one of Control’s custom transmission sticks. Her finger stopped on the black box that matched. She squatted down, eye level with the bottom shelf it rested on, and found the right port. A small blue light on the stick lit up the second she inserted it.

  “You’re live,” Cora said.

  “Connecting now,” Control replied in her ear. “Standby for the all-clear.”

  “Your vitals are pretty erratic,” the older voice said. “Take a minute to meditate and center yourself.”

  “It’s just from holding myself still for so long,” Cora replied. “I’m fine, Dad.”

  “Stop calling me that,” he said.

  “I prefer it over Black Fox,” Cora said with a smirk. For as stern a leader as Richard was, he could be overprotective of Cora, at times. She looked up, examining all the matching black boxes around her, with no clue how any of it worked.

  “If it makes you feel better, you can call me Daddy,” Control said.

  Cora cocked an eyebrow. “I don’t plug into an electric socket. You wouldn’t know what to do with me if you had me.”

  She quivered. The air in the room was cold enough to chill her sweat beneath the bodysuit. The chemical scent in the air lingered in her mouth with each breath like an aftertaste. Whoever said adept magic-users were best suited for urban reconnaissance didn’t understand how much they naturally hated machines.

  A female voice came over her comm. “We’re getting strange readings from the tenth floor. Bravo team, meet me at the elevator.”

  Cora shook her head. She was trained for combat, but she was never supposed to be in it. Her job description included words like ‘stealth’ and ‘invisible’. This day kept getting worse.

  “What did that just shrink the window down to?” Cora asked.

  “Four men and one woman just boarded an elevator on the second floor,” Control replied. “So I’d say a minute or less.”

  “And you need how much more of that time?”

  “Twenty seconds,” Control said. “Fifteen, if you don’t ask again.”

  “Black Fox, how are we doing this?” Cora asked.

  His older voice replied, “Stay invisible. No lethal force.”

  “Download complete. Get out of there,” Control said.

  Cora pulled the stick and dashed for the door. On the way in, she counted thirty steps to the end of the hallway where the elevator waited, and another forty to the stairwell door. As she entered the hall, a quick glance at the panel
beside the elevator showed the number seven. She was out of time.

  “I’m going out the hard way,” Cora said.

  She bowed her head and inhaled. She put aside the artificial smell of the air and focused on her breathing. Her mind reached out to the place she wanted to be the most. Remembering the soothing, yet deafening rush of a waterfall in Child’s Park in Pennsylvania, she honed in on the sight and sound. Natural, thick air, rich with fresh water, mixed with the smell of pines. At nightfall, a mist rolled in and came up to her knees. She sat on a park bench with Richard, her mentor. He wanted her to feel the fog on her skin, to know it like her favorite jacket. Cora held onto that memory as her fingers moved through the air, tracing the patterns of ancient arcane ritual.

  A chill filled the hallway. Sparks of energy formed and fired from Cora’s fingertips. The air became heavy, so full of water vapor that the industrial air conditioning protecting the server floor created white clouds that obscured the hallway. Cora pulled her mask over her head and slid the goggles into place, activating the thermal imaging lens in time to hear the elevator doors slide open.

  “We have contact,” a woman’s voice called out. “The floor is filled with fog. Possible magic-user. Radio for Arcane Unit.”

  “Confirmed,” a voice crackled on the her radio. “Be careful up there, Commander Blaum.”

  Cora leaned back to the wall beside the server room door. Her Apex Camouflage adapted to the wall for anyone lucky enough to see through the fog and get close, but she already knew the positions of every guard. Lit up in a rainbow of reds and blues against a wall of gray, her thermal goggles tracked their every nervous step.

  The commander stepped sure and bold, a submachine gun at the ready. Her Bravo Team took unsteady steps, two men ahead of her, two men behind, all of them with rifles. Bauer Securities composed of former soldiers and mercenaries from around the globe. The only thing they all had in common were their itchy trigger fingers and inability to deal with magic.

  Cora held fast to the wall, waiting and watching. The point guard at the left drew close to her position, sticking to the wall so close he would bump into her with a few more steps. A gentle hand double-tapped the talk button on her earpiece. She stared down the commander, and the rainbow silhouette reached up to her earpiece, replying with a double-tap of her own.

  Cora’s footfalls made no sound as she pushed off the wall, weaved between the two point men and brushed across the commander’s shoulder. She walked past and leaned her back against the woman. Cora’s hands reached to the back of her belt, where she holstered a pair of AX-38 Taser pistols. Over her shoulder, she whispered to the commander.

  “Ten and two.”

  Cora pulled both Taser pistols and locked her sights on the two guards bringing up the rear. By the time they processed the distinctive sound of a weapon drawn, they were already frozen in a painful spasm of electric current turning them to statues and dropping them to the ground. Likewise, the thud of two bodies hit the floor behind her.

  “You brought them right to me, Giovanna,” Cora said.

  “Don’t be mad, patatina,” the commander replied in her native accent, a thick, seductive Italian voice. It betrayed her appearance. “Bravo Team was blocking our exit.”

  Cora spun around and holstered her pistols. “Second floor is clear for evac, then?”

  The blonde, American woman with the strong jaw and head-to-toe gray camouflage tapped her earpiece. “Control, how much longer can you hold the camera system?”

  “For you, Echo-1? I’ll keep it tied up all day,” he replied.

  Giovanna followed Cora to the elevator. The mist receded around them, dissipating from the ceiling to waist level by the time the doors dinged open. She cast off the helmet and dropped it to the floor, then went to work on her uniform. The plated armor woven into the cloth hit the ground of the elevator with a heavy thunk of its weight.

  Cora pushed the second-floor button and watched the doors close while Giovanna stripped down. Beneath the camouflage and armor, she wore an anime t-shirt and capri pants. Cora didn’t want to gawk, but Giovanna possessed a power unlike anything she had seen unlocked by The Awakening. The rosy-cheeked, square-jawed blonde turned her head to the side and shut her eyes, as if awaiting a needle prick. Color drained from her skin, to a ghostly pale within a heartbeat. Her cheeks and jaw rippled beneath the skin, so subtle it was hard to realize her cheekbones were lower than a moment before, her face more round. Giovanna sucked air from between clenched teeth. She batted her lashes. The transformation complete, she opened almond-shaped brown eyes of Korean descent. Her fingers on both hands traced the close-cut blonde hair of a soldier, pulling it into long, nail-straight black hair.

  “I never get tired of watching that,” Cora remarked.

  “It’s like having someone watch you go to the bathroom,” Giovanna replied, her natural Italian accent replaced by a cute, tiny voice more suited to her new appearance.

  The elevator opened to rows of cubicles. Thin, industrial gray carpeting combined with the carpeted walls of the cubicles and the stark fluorescent light for the most banal looking office Cora had ever seen. It was still so artificial, but at least the chemical smell was gone. Giovanna clutched her side with one arm and started a labored stroll onto the main floor. Her other hand waved behind to Cora, motioning her to the wall of cubicles ahead.

  Cora ducked down and darted to the wall, pressing her back against it and letting the Apex Camouflage shift until she blended into the furniture.

  “Deiter!” Giovanna called out in pain. Her voice carried across the empty office space.

  A male voice with a German accent replied back, “Soo-Mi? Are you alright?”

  Giovanna disappeared from Cora’s view, around the corner, deeper into the office. Cora snaked to the corner and peeked over. Giovanna was lifting one side of her shirt up, revealing a dark bruise that covered her lower ribs. The wound was fresh and convincing.

  “I slipped in the bathroom and hit the sink counter,” Giovanna whined. “I think I might have broken a rib. Can you help me to the parking garage? I dropped my keycard.”

  “Oh, no, Soo-Mi! Do you want me to take you to the hospital?”

  A young German man in his early twenties appeared in the aisle beside Giovanna. Tall and lanky, he towered over her while examining her injury.

  “No, I’ll take myself,” she replied. “We have a deadline to meet.”

  “My code will be a mess,” he said. “I’ll be too busy worrying about you.”

  The pair walked down the aisle to Cora’s position, then turned left towards a door at the far end of the hall. Cora kept herself three steps behind the whole way, ready to knock Deiter unconscious if he compromised either of them. This was the end of her mission, the last she’d ever have to do. She’d be retired at the ripe age of twenty-four, free to travel the world, study, whatever she wanted. Nothing would stand in the way of blue skies and loud motorcycles.

  Deiter waved a card at a panel beside the door. Giovanna pushed it open and put a hand on his shoulder.

  “I’ll be okay, I promise,” she said. “I just want to make sure it’s not a big deal. I’ll be back Monday, I promise.”

  Deiter turned his head to the ground. “At least let me walk you to your car.”

  Giovanna stepped in close, the kind that was dangerous in the workplace. Deiter gasped.

  “Monday. Take me to lunch, somewhere nice,” Giovanna said. Her free hand waved behind her, out of Deiter’s field of view. Her other hand held the door open.

  Cora moved around the happy couple without a sound. Her eyes adjusted to the natural light outside, grateful to leave the cold, white LEDs in that stuffy office behind. Her Apex Camouflage flickered, struggling to match the wall, carpet, the door, and the cement of the parking garage. The dizzying display was lost on Deiter, locked in Giovanna’s gaze.

  “I gotta run,” Giovanna said, wincing. “Monday!”

  “Monday!” Deiter replied as the heavy
door closed in front of him.

  Cora laid down across the backseat of a 2079 Volvo S10 and waited until she heard Giovanna get in and start the engine.

  “We’re clear,” Giovanna said, her voice still adorable. She glanced back at Cora, but didn’t notice her through the Apex suit’s cloaking.

  “I’ll believe it when we’re back at the hotel,” Cora replied. “Until then, I’m a plush, yet economical backseat with great leg room.”

  The car started moving, winding around the downward spiral to the first floor. Giovanna tapped her ear.

  “Control, be a doll and raise the gate for me,” she said.

  “Gate is up, Echo-1,” Drake’s voice replied in both their ears.

  “Then we’re en route,” Giovanna said.

  “We’ll be monitoring your arrival,” Richard’s older, commanding voice replied. “Outstanding work out there, you two.”

  Drake worked fast. Cora never felt the brakes of the car engage as they passed from the concrete maze to the blue sky of late afternoon. Cora smiled to herself, staring through the sun roof.

  “So, where did you come up with that bruised ribs thing?” Cora asked.

  “What I told Deiter? That was real,” Giovanna replied, her Italian accent returning.

  Cora couldn’t see from her back, but she imagined Giovanna was shifting back to her real form, the olive-skinned Italian beauty that should have been a model instead of a secret operative. She was so elegant, fashionable, and attractive that it was a chore to be in the same room with her. She would find herself staring for an imperfection in Giovanna that she’d never find.

  “You slipped in the bathroom?” Cora asked.

  “No, Commander Blaum is sleeping inside a locker on the third floor,” Giovanna replied. “And she did not want to go in there willingly.”

  Cora chuckled. “What about Soo-Mi?”

  “It’s the weekend. She’s off. Deiter really needs to tell her how he feels, though.”

  Cora shook her head and returned her gaze to the skies above Berlin. The clouds puffed and the sun shined.