by Kevin Bragg
A client who came to me in good faith and the belief that I could find the answers to her questions.
A girl who knows I’m up to something tonight and willing to lie about it if necessary.
A cab driver I met just the other day and dragged into my scheme.
And an assistant whose entire life occurred within the limited confines of my office.
A trail of crumbs left for anyone smart enough to follow.
No mistakes and no more crumbs.
According to the schematics, I could piggyback onto MARA Corp’s entire network from the security keypad outside the door I intended to use. Cameras, employee files, as well as their fingerprints and guard schedules. Everything. All I needed to do was hop over a wall and up onto a roof in a suit I’d never really used.
What could possibly go wrong?
The simple answer: a lot.
I edged back to the sidewalk and scanned the area. All clear. I sucked in some courage and bolted across the street. Three metres before reaching the perimeter wall, I clenched both my fists and engaged the rockets. I shot over it in a nice graceful arc. A short burst to control my descent and I touched down with surprising dexterity.
Four strides later, I fired the jets with too much gusto and hurtled upwards like a nine-pounder shot from the Queen Anne’s Revenge. I cut the jets and plummeted towards the R&D roof with all the poise of a meteor.
To avoid serious injury, I powered up the levitation system of the boots about a metre before crashing into the roof and it worked – sort of. Without a stabilisation system, the cushion created by the boots caused me to pitch backwards like Chaplin on a banana peel. Spreadeagled and staring up at the dome, I fought through the pain and hoisted myself up into a crouching position. I switched on the thermal imaging in my visor just in time to catch the outline of a person on the other side of the exterior wall, walking towards the roof access door.
In spite of my spine feeling like it had been broken, and the refusal of my lungs to function, I scrambled for the door. Not the best hiding place, but at the very least, the guard might only poke their head out for a quick peek. I had to chance it. If not, this enterprise was over before it even began.
The door opened seconds after I made it to the wall. I held the same breath I had struggled so hard to find moments ago and caught a glimpse of the guard in profile. Could I take this guy? Probably, but not without him seeing me. I could beat him senseless but he’d remember a lunatic in a black super-suit. And he’d talk. To his supervisor. To Kitterman. To the cops. Who knew? But no one outside the military should have a get-up like this one. The account of such a rare encounter would be one more crumb in a growing trail that led right to the tip of my shoes.
Fortunately, the metal barrier clicked shut before my fight and flight instinct had a chance to exert full control over me. I exhaled softly as I turned to watch his heat signature drift down the corridor and beyond my field of vision.
The upshot to having the crap scared out of me was that the guard left a handprint on the rail of the door’s corrugated metal landing. I scanned his thumbprint onto the thumb of my glove. Once I had it, I compared it against the company’s employee database. After a few seconds, I had his name, his ID number, his access codes – everything.
I stole up to the keypad and set to work infiltrating MARA Corp’s network. Minutes later, I had all I needed to control the hallway cameras and get inside. The door opened silently on well-oiled hinges and I slipped into the building.
A quick review of the schematics showed me a central staircase I could use to make my ascent to the top floor. I turned the cameras in my area away from my path to the stairwell, adjusted the temperature of my suit to match the thermal sensors, and crept as quietly as two kittens down the corridor to the next of a never-ending series of doors between me and Kitterman’s office.
As I entered the stairwell, the door shut louder than I would have liked.
‘Anyone there?’
From the distance and the echo, the voice came from two floors below me. Without looking, I sprinted up the stairs, taking two at a time and sticking to the wall as best I could, using the noise made by the guard as he lumbered upwards to cover my own footsteps. The fella below me must have proceeded with some caution because I reached the top before he’d made it to three. I quickly reset the cameras I had moved and prayed no one noticed.
‘Phil, this is Walt. Do you copy?’
‘Yeah, I copy. What’s up?’ drifted up to me in faint reply.
‘I’m in the central stairwell and I heard a door close. You haven’t noticed anything suspicious, have you?’
I could make out the offending item in question opening and closing as he spoke; testing it liked he’d never used one before. I caught the end of a leg and shoe before it disappeared from view. He must have stepped into the hallway to have a look around. I used the opportunity to reposition the camera outside the door next to me and the one near Mara Kitterman’s office. The third floor door opened again precisely at the same moment I dashed through the matching one four floors above him.
‘Nothing? Roger that, Phil. Maybe I imagined it. I’m heading up to four now. Out,’ I heard Walt say into his comm. before I let this door close – much more quietly this time.
I stalked down the seventh floor corridors and reached Mara’s door without incident. Another locked door greeted me. Don’t get me wrong, I assumed the door would have a lock; it’s standard protocol for these corporate types. But this shit was getting old.
Blueprints and schematics will only get a person so far. They don’t, for instance, tell you who might have access to the office of one of the most influential people on this little red planet. Guards and cleaning crew made sense so I started there. I already had the fingerprints and chip ID from the guy who had stepped out on R&D’s roof earlier. They worked once, so why not again? I placed my thumb on the scanner with his print still loaded into it.
Success!
The sound of the lock mechanism might as well have been a chorus of angels’ singing. At long last, I had reached my prize. Kitterman’s sanctum sanctorum was nothing more than a doorknob turn away.
13
Once inside her office, I relocked the door and scanned the room for additional security measures. The schematics didn’t show any but I hadn’t come all this way to trip at the finish line.
Despite the fact that reality matched the construction drawings, a sense of relief did not wash over me. Instead, I stuck to the walls, away from the centre of the room, eyeing it like the heart of some sort of abandoned Inca temple waiting to drop a giant boulder on the careless. Keeping to the perimeter also gave me a chance to take in the office with more detail.
A conference table with six chairs dominated one part of the large room. Mara’s imposing Georgian-style desk and a high-backed executive model occupied the other half. Beyond these two features, the room contained little in terms of decor. The wall opposite the door was one large pane of smart-glass overlooking RD1. Expensive-looking wood panelled the lower half of the other three walls. Painted some version of white, the upper halves of the walls reflected the light cast by the corporate logo, giving the place a soft, warm glow.
Three pieces of art adorned the interior walls. A portrait of her father and another of her mother hung near the conference table. They looked like silent mediators who presided solemnly over every meeting Mara had in this office. The other painting took me by surprise: an original Bengt Oscar.
His work reflected a distrust of a world becoming increasingly reliant on technology. Bengt Oscar used bold colour combinations and strong brush techniques to create haunting and complex allegories of a world subsumed by the one thing it loved so dearly: high-tech gadgetry.
Like countless other artists before him, Bengt Oscar enjoyed very little success during his lifetime. Most people deemed his work harsh and inaccessible. However, within the last couple of decades, his pieces started to gain popularity and now sell for im
pressive sums at auction.
I moved around Kitterman’s desk to get a closer look at the painting. I switched on my visor’s penlight in order to see better. It was stupid of me to do so, but I doubted I’d ever have another opportunity to see one of his paintings outside of a museum.
The piece contained a fairly simple landscape that featured a group of leafless birch trees standing along a dirt road in the foreground. All around the trees and along the road, high grass filled the canvas in a jumbled mass of browns, auburns, reds and goldenrod. The high grass gave way to pale yellow strokes that resembled a field of wheat. In the far background, a line of trees separated the golden field from the dulled orange sky with indistinct shades of green.
Without a hint of distorted machinery, or anything pointing to his disdain for a self-destructive modernity, it must have been one of his earlier works. My reverie and appreciation of the painting was brought to a sudden, panic-inducing conclusion by the sound of Kitterman’s office door unlocking.
*
Another freakin’ guard? How many times? How many times was this going to happen before I could get my ass outta here?
I killed the penlight and crawled under the desk. Fortunately, the front panel of the Georgian desk went all the way down to the floor. I’d be safe from detection so long as the newcomer didn’t come all the way around for a thorough peek.
Trails of light bounced around the wall behind me and streaked across the Bengt Oscar. Like peals of lightning, each flash gave the birch trees in the painting a brief but menacing appearance. The gentle creak of well-worn shoes matched the soft thud of rubber soles as the light and the guard walked to the centre of the room. By the heaviness of the footsteps, I could tell it was a guy.
My God, how these guards had hounded me the entire night without their knowing. An unintentional pursuit from rooftop to top floor. A game of hide and seek that only I knew we were playing. It might have been funny if I wasn’t so damn tired.
I told myself I didn’t get into this business so I could wear super-suits and leap from building to building like a crime-fighting avenger. I wore a shirt and tie to work. I followed leads, my gut, the evidence and got the job done. This b-and-e and hacking your way into a high-profile place was for someone else.
But not for me.
Says the guy with the super-suit, who has already committed several felonies. I bought the lie though. Desperate people will buy anything if they think it’ll get them out of a jam.
I poured all of my energy into pleading with cosmic forces to stop the guard before he made it to the side of the desk with a clear view of me balled up underneath it. And it worked. At mid-room he came to a standstill, bounced his light around the place a few more times, turned and left. The lock reset and I sat there, waiting and listening. After a few minutes of all quiet, I pushed Kitterman’s chair out and peeked my head over the desk. I had the office to myself once again.
Another quick check of the schematics confirmed that a safe should be in the wall behind the painting. I eased the picture down off the wall, and found a thick metal door with a touch screen.
‘Last hurdle,’ I told myself quietly before removing the touch screen’s four set-screws, which gave me access to a motherboard and a connection port.
The complexity of the code for the safe lock almost beat me. I nearly called it quits. The design was intentionally convoluted. Probably to slow down a box man like me and give the guards time to respond. Those last words sunk in and I redoubled my efforts. Through the fatigue of a long-ass day and fear of Walt, or Phil, or someone else barging in at any moment, my brain and fingers raced through codes, combinations and every trick in the book.
A telltale click alerted me to my success. Despite the small door being about 5 centimetres thick, it opened outwards on its internal hinges easily. I flicked on my visor penlight again and had a closer inspection of the safe’s contents.
A stack of important-looking papers and folders partially hid my prize: a datapad measuring 10 centimetres by 10 centimetres. Without knowing what sort of security protocols the device contained, I knew I had to take it with me. I had to risk Kitterman discovering its absence over the risk of another guard coming into her office while I tried to access it through the FE9’s computer.
I slid it out of the safe and into my backpack. With the safe closed, and the painting back in its spot, I gave the place a once over to ensure nothing looked out of place.
The thought of retracing my steps filled me with dread. Instead, I opted to go up to the roof and try my luck with the jetpack again. At Kitterman’s office door, I repositioned the hallway cameras to give me a clear shot back to the stairwell.
By the grace of all that is good and holy, I made it to the roof exit without running into any more guards. One more alarm disabled and I basked in the calm Martian night, feeling like a man just released from prison. Now to get the hell out of here and back to my much-missed bed.
I snuck up to the edge of the roof and took a peek at R&D below me. All clear. With no idea who might be where, I vaulted over the edge and dropped like a stone. The jets kicked in a few metres above R&D’s roof as I balled my hands into tight fists. I landed with some confidence-inducing grace and jogged to the edge closest to the alley I had made the first jump from earlier.
A voice came over my earpiece and nearly gave me a heart attack.
‘Mr Helmqvist?’ It was my wheelman.
‘Yeah, Steve,’ I said in a low voice. ‘Everything alright?’
‘I dunno. You tell me. It’s getting kinda late.’
I checked my watch. 4:30am. ‘Jesus! That late already? I’m nearly out of here. I’ll call in a few minutes for a pick up.’
‘You got it,’ he replied on the back end of a yawn.
*
Twenty metres from the edge of the building, I tried to visualise the next jump in my head like an Olympic athlete. I went through each step until I felt comfortable enough to trust my instincts. I took off at a measured pace and picked up speed as I neared the end of the real estate. Rockets engaged, I soared through the air like a tiny, black missile.
I cleared the perimeter wall and flew straight at the space between the two buildings. My altitude ensured I’d not be seen by cameras. However, my speed carried me too far. I shot into the alley like an errant Roman candle. I attempted various acrobatic manoeuvres to right myself, fired the boosters, activated the shoes and did everything I could do to not kill myself.
In that regard, I did succeed.
I didn’t die but I got banged up pretty badly. When I turned on the boots’ electromagnetic levitation system in a failed attempt at a controlled descent, I sort of bounced along the pavement like a kid on a pogo stick and ricocheted into the building on my left. I hit it awkwardly with my elbow, which sent me into a spin. I landed on my right knee and fell over on my right side with no amount of grace.
Surprisingly, I could flex my elbow without problem. My knee, on the other hand, hurt like hell. I could bend it, so no structural damage. But it felt like someone was stabbing it with a screwdriver. I rolled over to a sitting position and attempted to stand. I got there in the end but no way could I make a mad dash through the alleyways to meet Steve where he had dropped me off.
‘Steve,’ I groaned into the comm. unit.
‘You alright, Mr Helmqvist? You sound like you’re in pain.’
‘I’ve been better. But let’s just say that I’m no rocket man, that’s for sure.’
‘Who?’
‘Never mind. Can you pick me up on Corporation East? I’m about midway down the block. I’ll flash you with a penlight as you approach.’
‘You got it. Be there in a coupla minutes.’
I hobbled up to the entrance of the alley and waited in the shadows. True to his word, about two minutes later I saw the headlights of an LTI city cab. I flashed it with the light on my visor.
‘Stop in the alley, if you can. I don’t want to be seen.’
The
taxi turned into the narrow space between the buildings. The rear door opened enough for me to wiggle into the back seat.
‘What happened?’ he asked as he backed out onto the street.
‘I tried to get too cute and it bit me in the ass.’ I pulled the helmet off and threw it on the seat next to me.
‘What?’
‘I landed on my knee funny but it’s not too worse for wear.’
‘Ice always helps. Where to? Back to Commercial?’
‘Yeah, but before we go, I need you to do me one more favour.’
‘What’s that?’
‘Can you get my clothes? I left them in another alley over off of Franklin.’
‘No problem.’ Steve made an immediate left and headed towards Franklin.
*
Less than 10 minutes later, we were on our way back to the CD. I dressed as best as my bum leg would allow. I stowed the helmet and the gloves back in their storage space in the backpack. The storage device, I shoved in my jacket pocket.
We drove in silence. I caught the reflection of my smile in the cab’s window. Safely away from the immediacy of the danger of being caught, my adrenaline surged. Injured knee aside, I had to admit it was quite a rush hopping around in a suit made for heroes. All that complaining in Kitterman’s office was the fear talking. Truth be told, I dug it. Visions of cleaning up the streets of New London drifted through my mind. My city had a relatively low crime rate, but what about a zero crime rate? There was a thought…
We had just exited the avenue that connected RD1 with CD when Steve broke the silence.
‘Did you want to stop by your office?’
And just like that, the adrenaline washed out of my body and fatigue smothered me. I could save the city another day.
‘Nah, just take me home. I think that we’ve been out long enough tonight. Don’t you agree?’
‘Completely.’
