Playing With Toys

He smiled. "Not bad," he said.

Even after going through two lives he still wasn't too old or mature to appreciate it. There was just something so satisfying about a secret base with a hidden entrance.

He had given them general guidelines for what he wanted, but the details had been worked out by Tsumugi and delegated as appropriate by her so some of the execution was still a surprise for him.

Others might doubt their subordinates and feel the need to micromanage, but their lives literally being in his hands to the point where if they tried to screw him even without him knowing they would suffer. It really helped with any trust issues one might have.

The light illuminating their way down flickered on one at a time lighting their way. Tsumugi lead him down the stairs as the wall quietly slid back into place behind them.

At the end of the stairwell was a long narrow hallway, all along the base of the black walls was a strip of light drawing them forward.

Tsumugi smiled. "Between the stairwell and narrow hallways the entrance is highly defensible and these walls are lined with sensors and traps," she said proudly.

They arrived at another welcome desk. Multiple corridors split in different directions from the welcome room. This time the woman greeting them was dressed in a professional suit. 

"Good evening, sir," she said with a small bow.

She didn't straighten until he had acknowledged her at which point she turned to Tsumugi. "Welcome back miss," she said.

He nodded in satisfaction. "So what all can you show me?" He asked.

Tsumugi smiled. "Let's go to the armory first," she said dragging him off before he could seduce this receptionist into sleeping with them too. They didn't have enough hours left in the day for that.

The armory had an elderly man behind the desk who looked somewhat like a butler. "Good evening, sir. What can I do for you today?" He asked.

Tsumugi smiled excitedly. "We would like to see the selection," she said.

He wore a kind smile, but James could tell he wasn't to be taken lightly. "Of course young lady," he said.

He looked at James, "We wouldn't usually allow this, but we do have the boss here today. So how about you join me in back?" He asked.

James smiled and nodded.

The butler lead them through the door behind him into a large hall. It was laid out like an old library with many rows of heavy wooden bookcases. There were no books available though as the shelves were stocked with a wide assortment of weapons instead, ranging from as basic as a pistols to as crazy as a rocket launchers.

James looked around with an eager smile.

"There's a shooting range too if you would like to check out any of the items available. This includes the heavier gear. The shooting range is set up to handle anything we have in stock," the butler said.

James smiled, but shook his head. "That won't be necessary... at least not today," he said while his eyes travelled across the many items on display.

Afte he had been playing around with the many weapons on display Tsumugi grabbed his hand and pulled him towards the exit. "Ok, we've got a schedule to keep," she said.

He raised his brow. "I didn't hear you saying that when I was fucking your brains out before," he said.

She blushed. "That was part of the schedule," she said.

"You schedule in time for that?" He asked.

She smiled. "Of course I do," she said.

She dragged him back past the receptionist who smiled and bowed before dragging him down one of the other hallways.

This time they ended up in a more modern looking room and there was actually someone he recognised there, Mio.

She was sitting at her desk that was surrounding by two rows of three large displays displaying all kinds of arcane information flashing by.

Trumugi cleared her throat finally breaking her out of her focus.

Mio seemed annoyed at first hearing Tsumugi, but her frown quickly turned into a smile the moment she noticed him. "Good afternoon, boss," she said.

She jumped up from her chair and ran over to give him a big hug. "I missed you so much," she said.

He rolled his eyes. "Didn't we see each other just last week?" He asked.

She nodded seriously. "Exactly, way too long ago," she said.

He sighed and patted her head. "Sure. It's good to see you again too Mio," he said.

"So I heard you had some good news for him," Tsumugi said interrupting them.

Mio's smile widened. "Oh right!" She said.

She quickly dragged him to her workstation. After sitting down she started furiously typing away again.

"So I know you wanted me to get into the Tartarus systems. I was able to breach the outer systems pretty easily which was where we got the information provided before. However their more sensitive security systems were much more secure than that. I tried all the daemons in my arsenal to further penetrate their systems, but all of them failed. I had to custom create a few new ones to succeed in gaining a higher level of authority to their systems. After getting access, I unleashed a crawler to gather all the information I could from their internal systems. This was all broken into unrecognisable packets and carefully transmitted out of their system to avoid detection. After routing it through multiple servers across the world to avoid it being traced I finally have it all stored right here," she said ending with a final tap on the keyboard that opened a couple directories on her screens displaying a large variety of files. He wasn't even sure if she took a breath in there.

James had just nodded along with her rambling and patting her head from time to time as if he had any clue what she was talking about. He knew a little about programming, but just what was necessary to direct his IT specialists and no more.

-X-X-X-

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Writing Soundtrack: Michael Bublé - Various Tracks