“Human myth and legend are filled with mazes designed to torment their captives, maddening twists and turns, switchbacks and deadends that seem to spring from nowhere, even when moving back along your destined path.

 

“Labyrinths are the subject of games and entertainment, but in real life, their paths break even the strongest of wills, even the most pure of intentions.

 

“Perhaps the most insidious mazes of all are the complicated byzantine halls of bureaucracy, as practiced by the government and businesses.

 

“Now our favorite heroine, Aurora, finds herself in the mouth of this madness as she seeks the path to the villain, Mr. Mechanical!” --- A voice from the ghost in the shell

-----// Copper Flats Penitentiary, New Jersey USA //-----

----- August 1967 -----

 

“Is it true? About Smith, I mean, Doctor? Is he really dying?”

 

“The hazardous materials he’s worked with have greatly affected his body. I’m no specialist in the subject, but I can guarantee that these growths and tumors… these strange issues he’s having are the result of his interaction with toxic chemicals and radiation.  I’m afraid he has maybe a month left.  His body is failing fast.”

 

The Warden lowered his head to his hand and he drummed fingers on his desk. “He’s been a difficult customer to say the least and as far as we’ve seen, he has no living family to offer a mercy leave to. All he has is the interest from his corporate sponsors.  The ones who donate to us.”

 

The doctor responded, “Psychologically, he’s still lucid as ever.  I agree that we can’t necessarily trust him outside, but with his health failing, perhaps we can at least give him some comfort in his last days?”

 

The Warden waved his hands negatively. “No way.  He’s a supervillain.  I’m sorry that he’s dying, but to be honest with you, not very much.  Just let him die in here.”

-----// Seaside City, California USA //-----

----- March 20?? -----

 

“This is ludicrous! How is it possible that we’ve had a breach this… this… complete?!”

 

“I don’t know, sir. This is… unprecedented. The attack is not under any normal vectors… or more precisely, it adapted to our security software in real-time using heuristics that, frankly… seem to be alive.”

 

“What information was stolen? What was compromised?”

 

“Looks like it was the information from the x10CV group. Our best guess is that something called out from the inside.”

 

“A call out from inside …? Like inside the net?”

 

“Yes. Definitely from inside the network.  Beyond that, we’re just not certain of it. Files were corrupted, maybe.  But, reaching out to the x10CV group has given us very limited information.”

 

The man frowned deeply, looking at the IT wage slave, and made a mental note to ruin every aspect of the hapless IT person’s life after firing.

 

“All right, then. This gets buried. I’ll speak with x10CV myself. As for you…” he smiled falsely at the man and put a reassuring hand on his shoulder, controlling his convulsions at touching a ‘geek.’

 

“As for you, why don’t you go home and get some rest after you write all this up in a report? I think you’ve earned some time away.”

 

Turning sharply, he walked away, leaving the nervous cyber-security worker with a false sense of security.  The boss shook his head and sighed, frustrated.

 

Collecting supervillain tech in secrecy was difficult. Turning to look out a nearby window, he gazed upon fair Seaside City.

 

“Eccentricities and foolishness.  So much fool’s gold obscuring all.”

-----// Seaside City, California USA //-----

----- Wednesday, September 23rd -----

 

Aurora stood at the entrance of the purchasing department, a small set of cubes loaded with paperwork. She waited a short time before someone approached her, a nervous-looking man.

 

“Um, Hi.  Is this some kind of a singing telegram or something?” the man asked, “Who are you, uh… looking for?”

 

Putting on a dazzling smile, she extended the shipping slip to him she’d secured.  With her other hand, she rummaged in her bosom which caused his face to color before she removed her communicator to display her ID credentials, which were still up from when she was proving herself to the annoying secretary.

 

“Member of the Society of Sentinels, Aurora.  We’re requesting your cooperation with gathering information on the shipments of supervillain tech that recently put the city of San Isidro through a serious ordeal.  Would you be able to provide this information?” she asked.

 

“Oh? OH!” He gasped when she displayed her credentials. Another guy walked over and bumped him quickly aside as Aurora re-pocketed her communicator.

 

“Andy! You goober! Don’t you recognize her? You bury your head in the ground? Jeez.” This man’s smile was more confident and his clothes were a bit less rumpled than Andy’s.  

 

“She’s only been in the city a handful of times, but don’t you recognize her? It’s Aurora!” He turned sharply to the superheroine and clasped his hands. “I’m truly sorry about this. We’re not used to having high-end guests here.  My name is Carl, with a “C.”  I’m the senior agent here.  So, you would like some help with chasing down a receipt, huh? Let me see what we can do to help you out. Can I see the slip you showed Andy?”

 

Aurora smiled more. “Thank you.” She winked as she showed him the slip. “I can’t for the life of me imagine what good this kind of supervillain tech could do.  I can understand why they were mothballed in some obscure warehouse, but there’s probably not much of a market for giant retro robots, I’d wager.” Her lips spread in a broad grin.

 

Carl took the slip when Aurora only meant to show him it and beckoned for her to follow him to his desk.  Aurora shrugged and smiled.  Carl sat himself down behind his desk and started tapping away at his keyboard while Andy tentatively rolled his chair over to his boss’ desk.

 

The nervous Andy addressed Aurora, licking his lips. “Um… here you go. S-sorry I didn’t realize who you… uh… were.  Y-you can use my chair.” He smiled shyly.

 

Carl overrode Andy’s nervously delivered words, “OK! I have some information for you, but it’s not a lot, and it’s not good news, either.  At least, I think.” Carl signed in frustration. “So this was part of a shipment that was the subject of a data breach and as a result, all the information on it has been classified. It’s above my pay grade, but keeping records here is our thing, so we have some… resources.” He winked at Aurora, making her shiver.

 

Turning his eyes on Andy, Carl went on, “Andy, do me a favor and check the batch. Uhhh… one-four-six-ay-eff. Can you do that for me?”

 

“Yeah, I can.” Andy nodded quickly. “Uh, please excuse me,” he said, looking briefly at Aurora before hurrying off.

 

Carl took over again when Andy left, “Please don’t tell me receptionist sent you to us because you showed that slip to her, am I right?”

 

“That’s pretty much it.  She wasn’t very cooperative,” Aurora said with a dry expression. “Did she send me on a wild goose chase, after all? It seems you have something for me, though, right?” She reminded him.

 

Carl frowned.  “OK.  While Andy’s checking the physical records… by the way, they may still be accessible to us, but let me tell you a little bit about Extensive,” his voice went lower. “This department is ‘Purchasing’ as you know, but we don’t purchase anything here.  We’re responsible for keeping the records of the purchases and ensuring the right people get their bills. We’re more of a records archive than a real purchasing department.”

 

Carl leaned out from his cube a bit and looked left and right and popped his head up over the top and then sat back down.  “We’re all overworked and are underpaid, as you can guess, I’m sure.”

 

“But we do our job well and we get to stick around.  The point I’m trying to get at, though, is that we here are not responsible for actually buying anything.  So that slip really should bring us to the person responsible for this particular purchase. We’re looking right now to find out who you can contact. Of course, at this hour of the day, that person has probably gone home.  That means we’ll have to search for other people in his team and see if they’re available. Now, the file says it’s part of the x10CV department.”