The Breach - Ghost Country - Deep Sky

you don’t count places where they store radioactive waste. And c’mon, who’s counting those?”
    “Seven Theaterstrasse …” He loved the way that sounded, coming from her.
    “Everyone in Tangent is terrified of that place. Imagine the kittens they’d shit if they knew its real purpose.”
    Travis laughed. He didn’t know why. Didn’t care, either.
    “But since you’re going there, let me give you something you’ll need.”
    As soon as she said that, Travis felt a prickling inside his head, the sensation diffused, everywhere at once. Then gone.
    He heard Emily giggle. “Now don’t say I never helped you, irony notwithstanding. A girl has to have her fun, right?”
    “Whatever you want, I want,” Travis whispered.
    “Do you mean that?”
    He nodded, and the sphere grew silent for a moment, contemplative maybe. Then the light changed. Just noticeably. Darker but not dimmer—somehow.
    “Because what I want is trouble.”
    “Trouble,” Travis agreed.
    “It’s what I do. It’s what I’m for.”
    “Mmm-hmm …”
    “That’s why your enemies want me. They’ve got all manner of mischief planned. But their ambitions don’t concern us here, do they? We can make our own mischief right now. A whole world of it, if we want to. Would you like that?”
    “Oh yes …”
    The sphere went silent again, and Travis had the impression it was weighing options of some kind. He turned it left and right in front of his eyes, watching the light play in its depths.
    “Let’s see now … That would work … but it’s on the boring side; I want to do something big. Go big or go home, right? How about—” Suddenly the light flickered, and Travis heard Emily laugh. “Yeah. Oh yeah, that would turn a few heads. And there might just be time to do it, before the helicopter arrives. All right then, it’s settled. Go to the Black Hawk and take the satellite phone from the forward bulkhead of the troop bay. Run.”
    Travis ran. It was all he could do not to skip like a little kid. When had he ever been this euphoric? Heroin had been nice, but it might as well have been chewable aspirin next to this. He slipped a little on the soft ground outside the Black Hawk, laughed, and climbed in with his muddy feet. The briefcase on the front left wall had to be the phone. He pulled it from its clamps and laid it on the floor.
    “Turn it over and open the rectangle-shaped access on the lower right.”
    He flipped it, pressed the thumb tab and removed the panel to reveal a circuit board.
    “We’re going to change a few things before we make the call, or else it’ll never work.”
    “Okay.”
    “An inch to the left of the processor are seven jumpers, half the size of phone jacks.”
    He saw them. Each jumper was stuck onto a set of twin prongs, closing a bridge in the circuit.
    “Remove the jumpers at J4 and J6.”
    It was tricky, but he got them off after a couple tries.
    “Put one of them back on, at the empty position J12.”
    Easy. So easy to please her.
    “Now open the red tool case on the wall to your right. Take out the smallest precision screwdriver.”
    She kept speaking as he followed each order; he thought he could hear urgency in her voice. A lover’s urgency, begging him to take her to the edge.
    “Use the screwdriver’s tip to carve a gap into the silicon pathway marked PRC21. Do not damage any other pathway.”
    He finished the job in seconds.
    “Good. Now switch on the phone.”
    He turned it over and pressed the red button marked I/O. The phone’s LCD lit up with a red frame, and a message: MASTER SETTING MODE SELECTED. ENTER DOD AUTHORIZATION CODE.
    “Use the keypad to enter 98104801, followed by the star sign.”
    When he finished, the red frame disappeared and a menu came up.
    “Select option four, ‘Change ID Prefix.’ Answer all three questions with Yes, by pressing 1. Then enter 77118-star–945 as the new prefix. Pound key to verify it. Faster, sweetie.”
    He shuddered in response to her rising excitement; his fingers trembled on the keys as he finished the sequence.
    “Now exit the menu, just keep pressing 9 until it says, ‘Ready.’ Good, my love. We’re ready to call them. Pick up the handset and dial 82-star–375–121–9188.”
    He dialed. It rang once, and a man answered. “CINC-Pacific forward hub, please authenticate.”
    Travis opened his mouth to speak, and experienced bliss incarnate: the Whisper took control of his voice, bypassing his decision process. What came