"Yes we can. He'll fuck up sooner or later. He can't keep showing off his hand and expect to stay in the lead. We know he's manufacturing his own parts now. We'll find him…"
The rest was lost as they moved on, leaving the stranger behind. Burrett turned and, through the cracked lens of his mask, watched Jayne leave. Finally, he thought. Things were starting to fall into place.
The smog was particularly bad that night. Even Burrett found it suffocating and started to wonder if he’d keel over from the wretched air before he ever had a chance to meet Jayne face-to-face.
He was feeling antsy about their impending meeting. Jayne was doing well, but he wanted to make sure she was ready. He had faced unworthy opponents before. Challengers like Ray or Damien. Killing someone easily left him with a hollowness that quickly flooded with guilt.
Burrett’s thoughts drifted back to Damien. It’d been far too long since Burrett felt a good solid punch in the gut. Meticulous planning could drive anyone crazy. Damien gave him a chance to be spontaneous again. He felt like a young man, blindly striking out at everything wrong with society.
Damien was a good friend, right until the very end. Burrett always knew he’d be able to count on him, no matter what. Even if the A.I. hardware from Damien’s arm didn’t integrate with the design Burrett had been working on, Burrett remained grateful. So what if he wound up literally tossing the piece into the sewer? It was the thought that counted.
CHAPTER FIFTY-THREE
ISA Offices, Malicarsh Building, L45, Theron Techcropolis, Amaros
Around three in the morning Jayne shuffled out of the back room, bleary eyed and wrapped in a blanket. Merry, bent over her computer in the dark, jumped as Jayne shambled past like a quilt-themed ghost. She checked the time and grimaced as Jayne staggered over to the mini fridge under her own desk to fish out a bottle of water.
"Sorry, did I wake you up?" Merry asked.
Jayne grunted a negative and sank onto the settee with her water, almost vanishing into her blanket cocoon.
"I just had an idea about the case and came in to work on it for a bit," Merry explained. "Lost track of the time. I didn't even realize you were here. You've been spending the night at Cameron's so often lately..."
Jayne felt a pang of guilt and huddled deeper into her blankets.
"Wasn't you," she said, her voice rough. "Can't sleep."
The insomnia was becoming a regular thing lately. She couldn't remember the last night she'd slept all the way through.
"Case still bothering you?" Merry asked, a note of caution in her voice. Jayne had a feeling she meant more than just the case.
"What was the idea you had?" Jayne asked instead.
Merry took the change of subject in stride.
"Nothing important," she said with a shrug. "I just wondered if Burrett could make all the stuff in the plans by himself, and if not where he might be finding people to work for him. It'll take a couple of days to turn anything up and I'm probably wrong anyway."
"I'm at a dead end with the case right now anyway," Jayne admitted, shoulders heavy. "There's no rush. I've still got nothing on where or even why he's making these traps, and no leads to work on until one of Cameron's guys spots something, or Burrett gets tired of waiting and drops something in my lap again. Let me tell you, a violent psychopath leaving you hints because you're too incompetent to catch him on your own does not do wonders for your confidence."
"How about you work on something else, then?" Merry suggested. "A quick side job."
"You have something picked out, I assume?" Jayne asked, giving Merry the side eye.
"The Anderson Hotel on 75th just upgraded their security system, big time," Merry explained, pulling up the files and handing Jayne a tablet. "They're looking for specialists to test the new system before it goes live at all their franchise locations. Completely above board, great for our reputation, nice payout…"
"And?" Jayne asked, raising an eyebrow.
"And," Merry continued. "The security firm they're working with has one of the most extensive surveillance networks in the city. If I can back door into their system I'll be able to see pretty much everywhere, which should make our chances of nailing Burrett a lot better."
"And?" Jayne asked with more emphasis. Merry groaned, defeated.
"And they have the coolest new security tech!" she admitted. "Cutting edge! They're saying it's unbreakable, which is obviously bullshit, but everyone is jumping at the chance to be the one who cracks it first and if it isn't me I will die, Jayne. Just keel over and die. I need this."
Jayne rolled her eyes.
"Alright." She put the tablet aside and stood up, shedding the blanket. She stretched and her joints popped like a machine gun. "I'm in. Let's get started."
+++
Anderson Hotel, L73 Theron Techcropolis, Amaros
Jayne walked into the Anderson Hotel through the elegant glass front doors. The lobby was a stark, third revival art-deco minimalist space. Clean white lines, dark gray shadows, subtle gold accents, but most of all huge and empty. The click of Jayne's practical but fashionable heels echoed in its cathedral ceilings. As a show of wealth it was just understated enough to not be completely tasteless. In a city like this, where business fought over every square inch of space, like stray dogs over a chicken wing, to have acquired this much real estate was very impressive. To then put practically nothing in it? Jayne found it pretentious.
She smoothed her chic, tailored, dark blue suit jacket as she approached the front desk, balancing a tray of expensive coffees in one hand and a large binder in the other.
"Hi," she said, smiling at the concierge dazzlingly. "Christine Carter. I'm here to set up for the Vanthorpe conference?"
"Of course," the concierge replied warmly. "Mr. Vanthorpe said you'd be coming."
Mr. Vanthorpe had said no such thing. But it was much easier to hack his email than the front desk computer. And it turned out he used the same password for his email as for his company login, so Merry had also been able to edit the company's employee database and replace the real Christine's facial recognition data with Jayne's. Jayne privately wondered if it was cheating to take advantage of the weakness of outside security systems rather than attacking the hotel's system directly. But she figured anyone actually trying to break in would probably do the same. The less they had to actually engage with security, the more likely they were to succeed. So they were going low tech wherever possible, much to Merry's chagrin.
"Let me just print you a security badge," the concierge said. Jayne smiled, waiting patiently until the concierge turned to the printer, then she quietly peeled a small wireless drive the size of a pencil eraser off the bottom of a coffee cup and stuck it to the underside of the front desk computer.
The concierge turned back a second later, presented Jayne with the badge, and "Christine" waltzed through the facial recognition gate with a smile.
"I still think it would have been cooler if you'd let me hack the recog gate in real time," Merry grumbled in Jayne's ear.
"You'll get your moment," Jayne whispered back, walking casually down the hall to the elevators. "Are you in?"
"Yeah. The front desk computer is networked to the security computers. I should have camera control in just a few minutes."
"Awesome. Run me through our objectives again."
"The company wants you to attempt to enter a restricted area, gain access to client information, and steal something too big to put in your pocket. So goal number one is to reach the server room on floor b3."
"And for that I need to swap this badge for one with the right access," Jayne said stepping into the elevator and hitting the button for the tenth floor. There wasn't even an option for b3 in this elevator, which was intended only for guests. Only the service elevators went down to the lower floors, and they required a security badge with the right clearance.
"You could just let me—"
"Not yet. Low tech, remember?"
Merry made a frustrat
ed sound, but didn't argue.
There was a maid's station on every floor, but the tenth floor also had a conveniently located blind spot in its security camera coverage. Someone in interior design had insisted on tall, glossy ficuses staged strategically down every hall to make things feel more "open and natural." They obscured the cameras in a lot of useful places, which Jayne would note in her report later. But for now they provided useful cover as she slipped into the empty maid's station.
"You got the cameras?" she asked Merry quietly. The hotel monitored its staff far more stringently than its guests. There were three cameras in here that she could see.
"Yeah, they're running a loop. But hurry. Housekeeping will be through there any minute."
"I only need a second."
The staff had lockers in the maid station, intended for holding purses and street clothes during work hours. But Jayne was willing to bet at least one of them kept their uniform there on days off. The locker's entry keypad was easily popped out of the door with the multi-tool Jayne had in her pocket. Rather than bother with the wires, she pushed them aside, stuck her hand through the hole, and manually lifted the locking mechanism. Inside, sure enough, was a line of crisp uniforms.
"Housekeeping is on their way," Merry whispered as Jayne quickly changed. "Hurry up!"
"Keep your pants on," Jayne said calmly, shoving the keypad back into its socket. She dumped her previous outfit into a laundry trolley just as three hotel housekeepers walked through the door.
"Hi!" she said immediately.
"Hey," said the oldest of the three, a dark haired man. "Are you new?"
"Yeah, it's my first day," Jayne said brightly, offering her hand. "I'm Christine. I brought coffee!"
The three strangers expressed their immediate approval and hurried to relieve her of the fancy coffees. Jayne gathered the binder and started to leave.
"Where are you going?" one of the others asked, frowning. "We need to do rounds on this floor."
Jayne hefted the binder.
"On my way in one of the guests asked me to get this from his room for him," she said apologetically. The other housekeepers rolled their eyes in familiar exasperation.
"Next time, send them to the concierge," the dark haired man said firmly. "That is not your job. They'll have you running around doing errands for them all day if you let them, and then complain when the actual housekeeping doesn't get done. Run it down there and hurry back."
"Right, thank you," Jayne said with an apologetic smile. "I'll be right back!"
As she hurried away back towards the elevators, she fixed the security badge she'd palmed from the man onto the front of her uniform.
"How are we looking?" she asked Merry as she swiped her badge at the service elevator.
"All clear and ahead of schedule," Merry replied. "For as great as their security is supposed to be this has been a breeze so far."
"You're ready to crack it open when we get to the server room though, right?"
"Ready and raring to go!"
B3 was far more sparse than the ritzy upper floors, meant to be seen only by staff and security. The hotel laundry, hot water and air conditioning units, and most critically the server room were all on this floor. Unfortunately, so was the main security station. The guards passed through here regularly, which made her job just a bit more difficult. Two were leaning against the wall near the elevator as she arrived. She walked calmly past them, purpose in her stride, trusting her stolen badge to protect her. The two didn't even look up from their conversation. She took mental note of their faces for her report.
Her first stop was the laundry room to grab a trolley, which she rolled a little further down the hall to the server room. Her little trick with the multitool wouldn't work on the security door to the server room and if she lingered outside the door long enough for Merry to hack it she'd likely be caught by passing security guards. Luckily, she already knew the door's keycode. Merry knew an intern who worked IT here from one of her tech forums. She'd sent him a few flirtatious messages till he'd given her his work email, then sent him a bit of cleverly embedded spyware. He was keeping the password to the server room, as well as a ton of other important passwords, in a text file on his desktop. Merry had been disgusted.
Jayne shut the server room door behind her, smiling in satisfaction at the rows of quietly humming server towers. She opened the binder and took out the tablet and tool kit inside, carefully hooking it up to one of the towers, out of sight from the door.
"Here's your moment, Merry," Jayne said, initiating a remote viewing program to let Merry control the tablet from back at the office. "Don't let me down."
"As if. I got this," Merry replied, already at work.
Jayne waited patiently, watching the screen and the door. She was sure this was thrilling on Merry's end, but for her it wasn't terribly exciting. Just a lot of command windows opening and closing.
"Got it," Merry said eventually, an unmistakable note of pride in her voice. "Those assholes online said this wouldn't be cracked for months."
"Have what we need?" Jayne asked.
"Yep. Let's wrap this up. When we disconnect this tower it's going to start raising some flags upstairs, so we need to hurry."
"Can do," Jayne agreed.
A moment later, the lights on the server tower blinked off. Jayne carefully tipped it into the laundry trolley and covered it with hotel sheets. She checked that the way was clear before opening the server room door and slipping out, pushing the trolley ahead of her. It was smooth sailing from here. She'd take the trolley through the laundry room and out the back delivery bay where Fred was waiting. Easy as—
She stopped short as the door to the guard station opened and a guard stepped out in front of her.
He was young, tall, and… kind of cute. Jayne elected to smile.
"Sorry!" she said. "Almost ran you over!"
"No harm done," the guard said with a slightly surprised look. "Just be careful. You're supposed to have two people steering those things."
Jayne shrugged helplessly and started to push the cart around him. He was still looking at her, frowning.
"Are you new?" he asked.
"Yeah, my first day," Jayne replied, smiling and personable. "I'm Christine."
"Huh," the guard said thoughtfully. "Funny. You don't look like a maid."
Jayne's smile grew a little stiff. "Oh? And what does a maid look like, exactly?"
"Well," the guard replied, leaning on the laundry cart. "You're wearing your badge pinned to your uniform, for one thing. Head of Housekeeping, Donna, makes these cute little handmade lanyards for all the new maids. Pinning it warps the fabric. She thinks it's unsightly.
"Well, I guess she hasn't given me mine yet," Jayne said politely. "I only just got here and—"
"Second," the guard continued, "your hair is down, which looks great but is against company policy. And third,” — he gestured towards her feet — "you're also wearing designer heels."
"I like to look good," Jayne said, leaning over the cart towards him. "Wasn't a crime last time I checked."
"If it were you'd be a regular felon," he replied with a playful grin.
"Think I'll serve any hard time?" Jayne said in a low, suggestive voice. The guard licked his lips before he replied.
"I think that depends," he said. "On what you've got inside this unusually heavy laundry cart."
"I've got the cameras," Merry whispered in Jayne's ear.
Jayne smiled at the guard as he reached into the cart to pull back the sheets, eyes leaving Jayne for a moment to take in the server tower.
Jayne struck a quick, hard jab to the man's temple, silent as it was accurate. He stumbled and she hit him again just for the sake of thoroughness.
As he slumped, she caught him and set him down on the floor.
"Shame," she said idly, rolling her cart quickly towards the laundry room. "He was cute."
"Eh, he was alright," Merry replied, unimpressed. "A little smug."<
br />
"What's with my luck to run into the one security guard who pays attention to the cleaning lady?"
"We'll tell the client to give him a raise."
Jayne rolled past the people working in the laundry room without being stopped once. Walking with a purpose would get you most places unchallenged. The delivery bay was empty at this time of day. Fred pulled up in the escape van and helped her load the server into the truck.
"Do you think we lose points on the mission if I go back to wait with that guard until he wakes up?" Jayne asked.
"Uh, no, I think we're good at this point," Merry replied. "But you probably gave that guy a concussion, are you seriously going to—?"
Jayne had already removed her earpiece. She winked at the baffled Fred, who drove away without her as she headed back inside. She'd deliver her report in person. She hoped that guard could forgive her for kicking his ass or, even better, maybe he was into it. Jayne was confident she’d have someone to drink with tonight. Merry was right. Doing this side job really had made her feel better.
CHAPTER FIFTY-FOUR
ISA Offices, Malicarsh Building, L45, Theron Techcropolis, Amaros
Jayne returned to the office early the next morning, bleary eyed and wearing yesterday's clothes and thinking only of falling into bed for another few hours of restless, futile sleep.
"You're here early!" Merry said from behind her desk.
"Don't you ever go home?" Jayne groaned, realizing her plans to try and sleep were out the window.
"Less and less often, lately," Merry admitted with a sigh. "I'm starting to think we need to get another sofa bed. But I wasn't expecting to see you in here until afternoon. Figured you'd be out all night with your new friend."
"He had to work early," Jayne said, grabbing an iced coffee from the mini fridge. Her head throbbed when she bent over and she sat down quickly to avoid falling over.
"This is great though," Merry said brightly. "Dr. Ford is on her way here. You'll get to meet her!"
Expelled Page 56
