by Alex Rivers
He scuttled away. I glared at him darkly until he disappeared, and then let out a long, relieved breath.
“That was amazing,” Harutaka whispered.
“Amazingly stupid,” I muttered. “We should have checked to see if anyone was coming before I walked back. Any other surprises?”
“No, you’re good to go.”
I quickly marched back, logging out of the chat and removing the earphone from my ear. I glanced at the time. Nine thirty-two. Damn it. I had been gone for seventeen minutes. Just as I was about to reach the door of the dining hall, it swung open.
Maximillian Fuchs stood in the doorway, close enough to touch.
“Oh,” I said. “Uh… you startled me.”
His eyes burrowed into mine. Could he see through my disguise? My palms began to itch with warmth, and I desperately tried to think of my daughter. I lowered my eyes and tried to walk past him.
He moved slightly, blocking my path. Leaning forward, he inhaled deeply through his nose. Creepy.
I raised my head, meeting his gaze while thinking of Tammi, her smile, the way she skipped to school.
“Can I go back?” I asked, making sure to maintain the meek tone of the subdued waitress.
He looked at me for another second, then smiled. His teeth were impeccable, as white as snow. “Of course.” He moved aside.
I brushed past him and entered the dining hall, relieved. The guard eyed me, quirking his eyebrow. Right. I’d been gone for seventeen minutes.
“So much better,” I said. “You know how it is, sometimes.”
He nodded with uncertainty, but his face didn’t strike me as particularly suspicious.
Jonathan Roth was less amiable. “Where the fuck were you?”
“Lady problems,” I informed him shortly.
“Oh.” His eyes widened. “Listen, tomorrow is the banquet, and you can’t just disappear—”
“It’s okay,” I said. “The first day is the worst. I sometimes need to change tampons every thirty minutes. Ugh, I’m so bloated. But tomorrow—”
“Okay, okay!” He waved his hands in panic. “Just… don’t disappear like that tomorrow.”
Say the words “bloated” and “tampons” to a man, and he dissolves. I smiled politely and returned to setting the tables.
The evening seemed to stretch out forever. My nerves were shot after the near thing with the guard in the hallway, and all I wanted to do was leave. But the tables seemed endless, and Jonathan Roth was true to his word—he made people set the same place over and over until they got it just right. As the hours ticked by, almost the entire catering staff became united by our shared hatred of the nasal-voiced banquet captain. When he turned his back to us, we commiserated with the time-honored tradition of pantomiming to each other motions of strangulations, of cutting throats, of legs kicking his butt. Middle fingers were raised. Eyes were rolled. I earned a lot of love by doing very precise imitations of the way he strutted, my face wearing the same pompous expression he had. And, like kids in a classroom, whenever he turned around to see what the giggling was all about, we were all intently busy with the cutlery, lips pursed in concentration. As the evening progressed, his armpits began to acquire matching sweat spots and he had to change shirts again. How many identical shirts did he have in there? Three? Four?
At a quarter past eleven, the final seat was arranged. Jonathan gave us a speech he presumably thought would be motivating. He told us to get a good night’s sleep, that there would be no room for mistakes tomorrow. Most of the staff stared at him numbly, his words meaning nothing. But I took them to heart. There really would be no room for mistakes tomorrow. When I broke into the vault, even the smallest mistake could be fatal.
Chapter Twenty
My school education had been sporadic, dotted with long stretches of absence over the years, but I still remembered what it was like to wake up on the morning of an important test. The eyes open, seemingly into another normal day, the brain still trying to rewire the pieces together, a layer of blissful ignorance. And then the realization hits you. It’s today—the math test, or English test, or whatever test. A test that could determine your future—scientist, or coal miner? Businesswoman or crazy bag woman? There is always a feeling of unpreparedness, and a sense that something will go wrong. You’ll be late for the bus, or won’t find the classroom, or you’ll have to pee in the middle of the test. An impending sense of doom.
When you wake up on the day of breaking into the vault of a dragon, it’s like that—only a hundred times worse. My gut felt as if I had swallowed a ten-pound barbell, and it dragged everything down with it. My mind began racing with all the things I still needed to do before tonight, and with all the possible things that could go wrong. These were endless, and all resulted in me and my friends dying horribly. I began wondering if there was a way to avoid it all. I half-convinced myself I could kidnap my daughter and fly to Mexico—not an ideal solution, sure, but better than being burned alive by a raging dragon, right?
Magnus pattered around me as I shuffled around in my bedroom, getting ready. Those who say that dogs can sense how we feel have never met Magnus. He was obliviously cheerful, nipped at my feet, tripped me twice, and was generally unhelpful. Finally, I grabbed the leash and left with him.
We reached the street that my daughter crossed on her way to school. We were a bit early, and walked back and forth several times as we waited for her to make an appearance, Magnus glancing at me with exasperation.
And there she was. The crushing weight of the day lifted momentarily as she skipped down the street, wearing her pink boots, a purple dress I was pretty sure was new, and a bead bracelet on her right wrist. She was talking to her adoptive mother, Jane, asking something over and over. But Jane was distracted by her phone, and didn’t answer. For a second I was outraged. How dare she ignore my daughter like that? It was her job to raise her! I would never have been busy on my phone while Tammi talked to me.
But of course, I had done far worse. I had given her away, and this woman had raised her to be a wonderful, happy child. And now I’d also let a dangerous gangster find out about her. In the better-mommy contest, I came last, and I probably didn’t even deserve a participation award.
As they went past, she hugged Jane’s leg tightly while Magnus stretched his leash, sniffing at them. I opened my mouth, trying to tell her it was fine. He didn’t bite. But nothing came out.
“Can she pet him?” Jane’s voice startled me.
“Uh… sure.” I looked at her and quickly glanced away before she noticed my eyes. “He doesn’t bite.”
“Want to pet the doggie, Tammi?”
My daughter glanced at her mom, and then at Magnus. Then she gave a hesitant nod, and stretched out one hand, the other one still hugging Jane’s leg. She touched Magnus’ head, and he wagged his tail and licked her fingers. She giggled, pulling her hand quickly back.
“I used to be afraid of dogs,” Jane told me. “When I was a child. I don’t want her to be the same.”
“You’re doing a good job,” I said hoarsely.
She smiled at me warmly. “Okay, come on, Tammi, let’s go. Say goodbye.”
My daughter stared up at me. “Goodbye,” she said shyly.
“Bye, Tammi.” I waved.
They walked away.
My daughter had talked to me. I called her by her name. I was overcome by waves of gratitude, and new strengths. I was ready to kick some dragon ass.
Or at least, sneakily break into his vault.
To keep away from Shade hunters, Harutaka was staying at the mansion we used for surveillance. We had decided to neglect mentioning that fact to anyone concerned. I called Kane, asking him to meet me there, to go over some final details before the job.
I took an Uber to the mansion, the driver mercifully quiet for the entire ride. He gave me a sly look as we got there, probably deciding that I was the owner’s current lover.
Harutaka sat in the dining room downstairs, his lapt
op on the table, the monitor’s light illuminating his face in an eerie neon blue. The room was dark, the blinds pulled down. I flicked the light on. He squinted and peered up at me. He had a pair of earphones in his ears, and he removed them, unplugging them from the computer.
“Lou!” he said. “Shouldn’t you be sleeping?”
“It’s nine in the morning.”
“It’s tomorrow already?”
I folded my arms. “You never went to sleep?”
“This security system is fascinating! So many different encryptions, so many loopholes and dead ends and small traps. It’s clearly the work of several different people, who weren’t allowed to see each other’s work. That way, no one has the lock to this strongbox. It’s a great way to avoid someone hacking from inside. But it also leaves tiny cracks and holes for someone like me to use.”
“So you hacked it, right?”
“Well… most of it. There are still some parts I don’t have access to. I’m currently trying to get access to the mansion’s electricity and lights. It’s all automated.”
His fingers glided across the keyboard, making a strange sound—not so much typing, but more like a whirring, the sound of keys tapped fast enough to buzz like bees. I sat next to him and glanced at the monitor. He typed a set of incomprehensible instructions, but the weird part was that some characters were not in the English alphabet. In fact, they weren’t in any language I recognized. One of them, which repeated several times, matched the rune on the USB stick I had used the day before.
“Are those runes?” I asked.
“Yes.” He nodded, his fingers never pausing their dance. “A lot of their files are encrypted by 256-bit AES keys. I could just try to brute-force through them, but it would take too long.”
“How long?”
“Well…” He glanced at the time in the bottom right corner of the monitor. “It’s now seventeen minutes past nine in the morning. Brute-forcing these encryptions with this computer would take about… enough time for the sun to become a red giant. Humanity would be extinct, and we’d be late for the banquet.”
“Okay. Not brute force, then.”
“No.” He shook his head sharply. “That’s why I use chaos.” He pointed at one of the runes.
I scrutinized the character representing the rune. It seemed to almost pulse on the screen. The letters around it occasionally shimmered, as if just their proximity somehow affected them. I knew I was watching nothing more than pixels on the screen, but I couldn’t shake the feeling that what I witnessed was somehow a form of magic. Not the magic that Kane performed, channeling mystical energy through his body—a different form of magic, infused with technology.
Harutaka laughed his small, strange laugh. “People think chaos is just a mess,” he said. “But it isn’t. There is beauty in chaos. There are magnificent patterns. And there is possibility. When dealing with chaos, there is always a chance to beat the odds. And when you use the right runes, this chance can become almost a certainty.”
The front door opened and Kane strode inside, carrying a tray of three Starbucks cups. Same trench coat, same smile. But there was something behind that smile now, and his eyes slid away from mine. Despite my efforts to avoid complications, it was clear that things between us had changed. “Hey guys. I brought coffee. Lou, here’s your extra strong coffee.”
“Oh, god, you’re a life saver.”
“And Harutaka, you wanted… black coffee with two chai tea bags and a pump of caramel?” Kane gaped at the man with a mixture of horror and fascination.
“Yes! Thank you!”
“The barista asked me to repeat the order three times. She seemed quite shaken.”
“That is the general response I get in Starbucks,” Harutaka admitted. “And they always spell my name wrong on the cup.”
“They mangle everyone’s names,” I said.
“I have a cup collection at home. There’s one where it’s Harutacka with a ck, and one where it’s Harutaha. And of course, Harukata. I even have one where they spelled it Rokaka.”
“You have a complex name for Americans.”
“Rokaka! That’s not even close!”
Kane gave him the cup, and he sipped from it and licked his lips happily. Mine was the same as last time—perfect.
“There,” Harutaka said with satisfaction. “I can turn the lights on and off now.”
“There are more important things,” I pointed out. “What about the guest list?”
“I changed it last night,” he answered. “I added Baroness Fleurette van Dijk to the guest list, as well as her butler and her personal assistant.”
“Fantastic.” That would allow Sinead, Kane and Isabel to enter the mansion’s premises tonight. Harutaka would stay behind, monitoring us through the security cameras. “And the invitation?”
“I found the file with the invitation document, and sent it over to Sinead.”
“Good job.” Sinead would be sure to make a perfect forgery of an invitation for Baroness Fleurette van Dijk.
“I also deleted all the video footage of your little foray last night, overriding it with footage from the middle of the night. Oh! And I checked the guard shifts—our friend Gavin Pollard was supposed to be on shift during the banquet, so I changed it. You won’t run into him.”
“Good thinking. Did you manage to access the vault door?” I asked.
He paused and looked at me. “The vault door is not connected to the main security server. I can’t get to it.”
“Damn it. That means Sinead still needs to get the keycard and the password from Maximillian Fuchs.”
“I don’t like that part of the plan.” Kane frowned.
“That’s not the question,” I said, a bit coldly. “The question is—can you think of a better plan?”
He didn’t answer.
“The advantage is that by that point, if something goes wrong, we can still leave unharmed, and figure out a different way to break into the vault.”
He gave a small nod, conceding the point.
I turned to the hacker. “Harutaka, are there personnel files in the dragon’s servers? Maybe we can find something Sinead can use.”
Harutaka tapped some keys, and a small personnel file opened with the name “Maximillian Fuchs” on top. It had no image of him, only a physical description. Height: six feet; white hair, dark brown eyes. There was scant detail beyond the description. He had been hired seven years ago, and his current title was “security chief.” No CV, or anything else.
“Do we have to enter through the vault’s door?” Kane asked, clearly still bothered by the plan. “How does the dragon enter the vault? He sleeps there. Surely you saw him enter and leave it.”
Harutaka shook his head. “I checked the footage. He doesn’t enter through the door. And there’s no security cameras inside the vault, so I don’t know what entrance he uses.”
“I saw no other entrance in the blueprints.” I frowned. Something else nagged at the back of my mind.
“Dragons are magical beings,” Harutaka said. “Perhaps he shifts into another dimension. Perhaps he shrinks to the size of an atom and flies through the wall. Perhaps he turns into gas.”
“I can try to hypnotize Maximillian if Sinead can’t pull off the seduction trick,” Kane said. “But hypnosis can’t make a man do something he doesn’t want. And I assume he won’t be ecstatic about opening the vault door for us, so—”
“Why does it have his description in the file?” I asked, interrupting him. “Don’t you think it’s weird?”
Harutaka shrugged. “I guess that’s how the dragon likes his employee files.”
“Are there descriptions for the rest of the employees? A photo would be simpler, right? Yesterday, you told me you matched that guard’s face to a photo in his file.”
Harutaka hesitated, then clicked the mouse a few times. Gavin Pollard’s file opened, with an image of his face on top. It had no description. Harutaka opened a few more files. All had images.
A feeling of dread filled my gut. “I knew there was something wrong with him when I saw him,” I muttered. “Can you show us the footage from the dining hall yesterday evening? About eight p.m.”
Harutaka got busy doing as I asked. I sipped my coffee, my anxiety rising. To distract myself, I said to Kane. “The coffee is perfect, thanks.”
“You’re welcome.”
I wanted to say more, but couldn’t find the words. And besides, I wasn’t about to talk about the day before with Harutaka there. So I bit my lip, and took another sip, my eyes glancing away from Kane.
“There,” Harutaka said.
It was a video feed of the dining hall. I could spot parts of the chandelier at the edges of the image. Just as I had suspected, the camera was hidden in it.
All the waiters—including me—were setting the tables, and Jonathan Roth was strutting around pompously, but I couldn’t see Maximillian Fuchs.
“Fast forward a bit,” I said.
He did, and it ran quickly. We watched until nine p.m. without Maximillian making an appearance.
“Rewind,” I muttered. “Slower.”
He did. After a while, I leaned forward, gripping my chair. “Stop.”
He paused the image.
“See there?” I pointed at the screen. “Where that waitress dropped the plate? It fell but didn’t break, which was a huge relief. Those plates probably cost more than a hundred bucks each.”
“Okay,” Kane said. “So? Is there a significance to the plate?”
“When the plate fell, Maximillian was in the room,” I explained. “I remember, because I thought he’d say something. But he didn’t.”
“Is he standing somewhere outside the camera’s range?”
“He’s standing right there.” I pointed at an empty spot on the screen. “I’m sure of it.”
“There’s no one there, Lou.”
“Something was wrong, I knew it even then,” I muttered. “See how clean and polished the floor is? You can see the tables and us reflecting in it. But you know what? I think Maximillian cast no reflection. Not in those huge windows, either. That’s what I noticed, subconsciously. That’s why he felt so wrong. And that also explains why we can’t see him in the footage, and why there’s no image of him in the personnel file.”
