Turncoat by Megan Derr (the false prince series txt) 📕

"Shut up." He pressed another quick kiss to Dixie's mouth, then drew back, sniffling as he huddled by the nearby bank of monitors.

Byron took his place and held up two cases. The silvery Mason Chip gleamed in one, a shimmery blue-black chip in the other. "It's not battle-tested, but this should have plenty of defenses and a few nasty little toys to help you once they come down on you. It'll go in first, and then the Mason. After that, it's all on you, Turncoat. Make them hate that name with every fiber of their being."

"I will," Dixie said.

He grunted as the first chip went in, tingling and zinging through him as the contents were uploaded to his system, adding all sorts of bells and whistles. He gave a soft huff of approval.

"Here we go," Byron said and held Dixie's hand tightly as the Mason Chip slid home.

*~*~*

Everybody saw the Mason System a bit different on solo trips into it. His daddy has been fond of using a recreation of the old library he spent countless hours in as a boy. Like any young boy, Dixie had changed the interface damn near every week, each new creation louder and flashier and more ridiculous than the one before.

Toward the end, he'd settled into an historic post office where his mother had liked to go and had taken him along as a boy. Hundreds of PO Boxes became infinite under the Mason System, containing all the information he could ever need, though the more interesting the information the harder it was to open. There were tables in the middle where he could work to shuffle through the mess, and the service counters provided access to high level security that manifested as mail clerks.

The generic interface was a recreation of the G.O.D. central headquarters in New York City, and whenever two or more people were using the system together, that interface snapped into place.

But Dixie still held the master keys despite the G.O.D.'s best efforts, which meant everything would look the way he wanted no matter what they did.

Security guards were positioned at either end of the long building, still and disinterested. The system had not yet pinged that he wasn't supposed to be there. He ran through his software quickly, including the new bells and whistles from Byron, and pulled up a masking program that would make people think he was House for a little while.

It wouldn't last; the system was too smart for that, but it would buy him a little time.

Going to one of the windows in the middle of the hall, he struck the bell three times, waited a beat and rang it twice more, and after one last pause, rang it two more times. A clerk phased into place, dressed in an old-fashioned postal uniform, gold and green butterflies pinned to his lapels. "Good afternoon, sir," the security system greeted.

"I'm picking up a package," Dixie said. "Under the name Tabby Monarch."

"Do you have a package slip?"

Dixie reached into the inner pocket of the leather jacket he was wearing, slid a shimmery blue slip of paper across the counter. The clerk touched it and the butterfly pins turned blue and silver. "One moment please, sir." He faded out as smoothly as he'd faded in, and after a moment a small, glowing yellow box painted with silver butterflies appeared on the counter. It was about the size of Dixie's palm, thin enough to slip into the inner pocket.

Tucking it away, he went to one of the tables in the middle of the room. Pulling out several pieces of paper that resembled mailing slips but were in fact search requests, he filled them out and dropped them into a slot in the middle of the table.

A couple of minutes later, several mailboxes lit up bright blue. One lit up bright red. Damn.

He went to the nearest of the blue ones and quickly cracked it open. Removing the packet of papers stuffed inside, he pulled out the yellow box and opened it. Inside were fifty little glowing yellow balls—like day-glo marbles. He pulled one out and set it in the mailbox, closed it, and moved on to the next.

By the time he was done, he'd set wipe programs for his friends and everyone else he knew that the G.O.D. had a file on. Even if he failed to destroy the whole damn system like he wanted, that information would be gone in a matter of hours. And no one would notice until too late.

A lot of the information could be replaced, but much of it was unique to the G.O.D. and the lack of it would slow down manhunts in the future. Ideally, anyway.

That little task accomplished, he glanced at the box glowing red. Ariadne, and the lockdown on her information was, of course, the highest security the Dogs could provide. Security his daddy had helped design. Which meant Dixie could crack it, but not without finally bringing the Dogs down on him.

First thing was first. Going up to another service window, he rang the bell in a five-one-three pattern. When the clerk appeared, he said, "I'm here to pick up two packages."

"Do you have a package slip?"

Reaching into his jacket, Dixie slid a glowing yellow slip across the counter. The clerk touched it, flashed yellow, orange, yellow and then returned to normal. The butterflies on his lapels turned blue. "I'm sorry, I'll have to get a supervisor."

Dixie relaxed slightly and nodded. So far so good. The clerk vanished, one level of security gone. Another one appeared, dressed in a slightly different uniform, no lapel pins but a green nametag with Supervisor in gold print. "Howdy."

"I'm sorry, sir, but your packing slip is invalid."

"Apologies, must have given you the wrong one." Dixie pulled out a second slip, this one a shimmery purple with red writing. He slid it across the counter. The supervisor touched it, and the purple and red raced up his arm to cover him. He flashed several times, then