“Just like that.”
“And getting out?” She looks suspicious.
“That may be a bit more challenging.”
“You think?”
Now she’s just being sarcastic. Teenagers. Although in her case, I don’t think she’ll grow out of it.
“Even if your holographic trick works, there are the biometric locks,” she protests. “The thumbprint, the eye scan.” She stops. I observe her heart rate jump slightly. “We are not cutting off her thumb, Dragon.”
I shake my holographic head. “No thumb cutting. I promise.”
I hear a soft rumbling noise. I do a background scan for the source, and find that the source isn’t very far away.
She blushes. “Sorry.” The tone changes to a defensive one. “Hey, I’m hungry. I haven’t eaten since breakfast and a lot’s happened, okay?”
I smile. No, I grin. I think that’s a better description. I grin at her. “We can’t have that. I don’t want you fainting on me in the middle of Operation Mind Rescue.”
She glares at me. “I. Don’t. Faint.”
“Good to know.” I’m still grinning. Eventually, I’ll turn off the grin. For now, it actually seems appropriate. “There’s food in the back, in the storage box. I figured you might need it when I ordered the cart.”
“Impressive,” she mumbles reluctantly, opens up the box and rummages around. “So what first?”
“I’d suggest the sandwich, followed by…”
She doesn’t bother looking at me, just gives a disgusted snort. Crumbs blow out with her breath. “I mean, what do we do after I eat? You figured out who we’re going for?”
“Yes. Someone of similar height and body type. She’s older than you, but that won’t be an issue. Her shift starts in sixty-one minutes,” I inform her. I check the shuttles. All running on time.
“So in an hour,” she mumbles around an apple.
“No. Sixty-one minutes,” I correct her and wait for her lecture about approximate versus exact, and the appropriate usage of each. I like this lecture. She always gets very enthusiastic.
She rolls her eyes. “Whatever. We’re not having that conversation today, Dragon.”
How disappointing.
“Then it’s time to clean you up and fit you with your new image,” I say.
She makes a snarky comment. I ignore her and start up the cart. Security has increased in the building, but more so outside of it. They think Myth has escaped. They know where I am, or at least where my brain is. That isn’t moving anywhere on its own.
I increase my scans as we approach the more frequented service tunnels. I hear another cart approach. I slid us into a small storage room, wait for the other to pass by and continue. I find a bathroom that is empty, and wait for Myth to clean herself up. Then we continue.
“How’re we going to knock her out?” Myth is chewing her thumb nail again. “Drugs? Are we going to the med clinic?”
“Yes.” I wonder if I should remind her to stop chewing her nail, as Dr. Johansson had instructed me to. I wonder where the Games Boss has taken Kathy. She is no longer within my range. I increase water flow through the industrial area.
“Stop chewing your nail,” I tell Myth.
She scowls. “I wish you were real so I could smack your arm.”
I stare blankly at her. I think I should frown. That would be an appropriate response. Her statement is disturbing. “I am real, very real. And what has my arm got to do with your thumb?”
She shakes her head. “Never mind.”
I’ll have to spend more time remembering human culture and other oddities. For now, I focus on more pressing issues. I manoeuvre us as close to the med clinic as possible. We still have to walk down a corridor to get to it, and there is someone inside the clinic.
“Time to test this theory,” I say as we park the cart in the service tunnel and approach a panel. “Do you have your earpiece?”
She nods and rummages through her pack. I don’t really understand women’s bags. Myth isn’t like most women I’ve monitored, but her bag is pretty much like all the others. I suspect it’s packed with every item she might ever imagine needing through the course of the day, just in case.
“Yup. Got it.” Triumphantly she extracts the small earpiece.
“Put it on.”
As she does that, I remove my image and project another one onto Myth. It works pretty well, except when she moves.
And she has to move.
“Problem?” she asks.
She can see there is. Her arm moves a second before the hologram’s arm does.
“I have to tag the limbs to yours,” I explain. “We may need to go to the lab to get a few things.”
“Are you crazy?” she demands. “That place will be crawling with security.”
I check. “No, not so much. For now this will have to do. Walk slowly. Don’t swing your arms. Let me talk.”
“I think we let you talk too much,” she mutters.
I sit the sensor unit on her head and disguise it has a hat.
She glances up. “I hate hats,” she tells me.
“Stop complaining and walk. Slowly.”
We enter the corridor. I monitor us from the wall sensors. Not bad. Unless someone looks very closely, not bad at all. Focusing in on her muscles, I can anticipate which limbs are about to move and when and how much. I improve the match between the hologram and Myth’s body until the movements are almost completely synchronised. Great job, I congratulate myself. Maybe we can avoid a visit to the lab after all.
“Getting better,” I gloat quietly from on top of her head. She hears me through the earpiece.
“Fantastic,” she hisses back as she rubs her ear.
“Don’t talk. It ruins the hologram’s face.”
A security guard exits a door further down and walks towards us.
“Turn around,” Myth whispers. I feel her heart rate and breathing increase slightly.
“Sh. It’s okay.”
The guard doesn’t even look at us. He hurries past and we reach the med clinic’s door unchallenged.
“Give me a second.” I call the clinic’s extension from my control centre and watch from a monitor inside as the nurse enters the small office to answer the call. The Boss failed to include extension to extension calls in his communication block. “Go in now.”
Myth pushes at the door’s handle. The door slides open. The nurse glances up and waves from the office.
“Be right with you,” he calls out.
“Now what?” Myth mumbles, trying not to move her mouth.
“To the left,” I tell her. “To the pharmaceutical cabinet.”
She shuffles towards the large cabinet. It has a biometric lock on it. I have access to all the biometric readings of every staff member. I override the lock easily.
I keep up the fake conversation with the nurse, explaining about a stomach ailment, distracting him. If he turns toward the office window to look into the clinic, I’ll have to kill the lights. Patients aren’t allowed to help themselves to the drug cabinet. If he sees Myth plundering the drug supply, he’ll call security and we can’t have that.
Myth opens the cabinet and figures it out. “This what you were thinking of?”
She picks up a thumb-sized box of anaesthesia. It’s one of those quick shot deals: pop it against an arm or leg and press the button. A needle shoots out from inside the box, administering one dose to quickly alleviate pain in a highly distressed patient. In higher doses, it can also be used to subdue a patient who is out of control.
“Take five,” I order her.
She does and closes the cabinet door. It clicks into the lock. The nurse is still trying to understand my garbled voice screaming from the phone.
“Time to go,” Myth whispers, stuffing the five shots into her backpack as she moves towards the exit.
The med clinic’s door slides open and two guards enter.
Chapter 12: Myth
I froze, backpac
k clutched to my chest. If this little adventure continued, I really might need the med clinic’s services.
One of the guards looked ill and collapsed into a seat with a groan. The other one glanced around. Smiled when he saw me, or rather the image of someone else. Who did I look like? I’d never bothered to ask. Stupid, stupid…
“Hey, Lacy, what are you doing here?” He winked and sauntered closer. “Following me around, eh? Just can’t get enough.”
He’s flirting. I think. Not very subtle though.
I kept my face still. Lacy? Dragon was disguising me as Lacy? Ugh. Nice woman, but ugh. I didn’t dare look at the clothes I must be wearing. My shirt, or Lacy’s shirt, must’ve had some sappy slogan painted across it, front and back. Slogans that embarrassed me just reading them when she passed by. So glad my face was covered.
I could hear Dragon muttering in my ear. He was confused by the flirting, until he did a quick check.
“The guard’s name is Jasper,” he whispered. “There’s a connection. Jasper and Lacy have been spending a lot of time together lately.”
In other words, I’m supposed to be dating this Neanderthal.
Yuck.
“If he gets too close, he’ll see something isn’t right,” Dragon continued. Like I didn’t already know that.
I stared at Jasper through Lacy’s brown eyes. “Uh…”
“Please keep your mouth shut,” Dragon said. He made it sound polite. “I’m ending the phone call with the nurse.”
Sure enough, the nurse left the office, shaking his head. He stopped when he saw all of us. Saw the guard sitting down, groaning. He hurried over.
“Sorry, you mind waiting?” he called to me, to Lacy, as he focused on the more needy patient.
“Keep quiet,” Dragon said. Before I could respond, he spoke out loud with Lacy’s voice, “I’ll come back later.”
Jasper frowned at me. He came closer, his arm out, reaching for my hand.
Dragon, you better get me out of here.
We didn’t need an earpiece. We needed a brain link. I silently shouted at him to think of something. Otherwise, we’d be stuck with my backup plan if he didn’t. Backup plan: inflict damage on Jasper’s sensitive region, and I didn’t think Lacy would approve.
Dragon killed the lights.
Better than my plan. Less painful, anyways.
Jasper cursed, the nurse shouted for MindOpS to deal with the lights and Dragon whispered to me to move fast. Like I needed to be told that. I was already out of the clinic and halfway down the corridor by the time he put the lights back on. I wanted to run to the panel, hide in the service tunnel. Drive away on the cart.
I walked. Slowly.
Jasper called after me.
He was following us.
“Keep breathing,” Dragon’s voice buzzed in my ear. That was getting annoying.
“I am,” I hissed.
“Don’t talk.”
“Hey, Lace, wait. What’s wrong?” Jasper shouted. He started to jog after us.
I so wanted to run. Scream. Disappear.
“I’ll call you later,” Dragon yelled at him in Lacy’s voice.
Jasper kept coming.
I swerved into the tunnel and the panel slid shut behind us.
“Get off my head,” I growled. Reached up and grabbed the sensor unit. Plunked it down on one seat as I collapsed in the other.
The cart rolled away, as fast as a cart can go. Not fast enough.
Jasper shouted and banged at the service panel. It stayed closed.
We rolled along for a few minutes in silence. Apart from the fading sound of Jasper’s fist on the panel, that is.
“Well, so much for the easy part,” Dragon said cheerfully from the sensor unit.
I really wanted to smack him.
Chapter 13: Myth
The real Lacy showed up to work not long afterwards. She looked confused, not to mention irritated. As she marched into the women’s locker room, she stuffed her phone into her purse.
Yup. The boyfriend must’ve called her, complaining about her behaviour.
I wondered how that conversation went. Not pleasant, from the scowl on her face.
Chewing on my thumb nail, I watched Lucy from the corner of my eye. My head was halfway inside a locker.
“The room is empty,” Dragon said into my ear. “Now’s your chance.”
I almost asked him how he knew. Decided I didn’t want to know. Still I glanced around for sensors. There weren’t any.
Good to know he wasn’t watching women changing.
Deep breathing. I focused on that and the five shots in my pocket. Dragon had calculated it out. We needed five. That would buy us an hour at least.
I hope you’re right, Dragon.
I really didn’t want to murder her, even accidentally. Bad enough that I was going to steal the heart, or rather the brain, of the control centre of an entire city.
Then again, that brain had been stolen from a young man ten years ago.
“Myth?” he whispered. He sounded worried.
I nodded my head. “On my way,” I whispered back.
I removed the sensor unit from the locker and placed it on the ground. It floated away to the other side of the room. A female security guard popped up and approached Lacy.
“Oh,” Lacy gasped, her hand over her heart, her back to me. “I didn’t hear you come in.”
I didn’t listen to the conversation. All I could hear was the echo of my heartbeat pounding through me, like an angry fist against a bone door. My loud breathing. My noisy footsteps. Why couldn’t she hear it? She had to hear it all.
She didn’t.
Lacy didn’t suspect anything, until I popped the first two shots at the same time against the base of her neck. She started to spin around, her mouth forming a scream.
“Sorry,” I gasped as I fumbled for the next shot. I dropped it. Of course.
Lacy’s reflexes were already slowing down from the strong medication. Not enough though. She grabbed at my shoulder as I bent to get the shot. She kicked at my hand. That hurt. The shot went zinging away behind me.
I could hear Dragon shouting at me in my ear. The fake security guard also shouted. Their words didn’t register. I stared into Lacy’s brown eyes. They were wide with shock. Fear. Anger.
I drove my knee into her stomach.
As she doubled over, I yanked another shot from my pocket. Pushed it into her shoulder. The fourth one as well.
She sank to her knees, gasping. Her eyelids twitched and lowered. She shook her head, determined. Grabbed at me, clawed at me. I screamed and pulled back. Five red welts stung. I sucked at the back of my hand.
She grabbed at her bag on the floor. Her eyes glared at me. Her head drooped.
“The fifth one,” both Dragon and the security guard yelled at me. “Get the fifth one. Behind you.”
I stumbled backwards, staring at Lacy fighting to stay awake. That was one battle she wouldn’t win.
My foot slipped on the fifth shot. I reached down.
Her eyelids quivered closed. Her hands pulled out her cellphone. Pressed a button.
I plunged the last shot into her neck. Grabbed the phone. With a sigh, Lacy passed out.
I dashed to the closest toilet and threw up. Repeatedly.
“Lace?”
Jasper’s voice rose up from the phone in my hand. I slipped down beside the toilet. Leaned my head against the wall. Hung up.
Dragon walked to the cubicle. Golden brown eyes studied me.
“You okay?” His voice was soft. Worried. Like he cared.
Of course he does.
I shook my head, closed my eyes. “Yeah. Sure. Let’s go.”
Chapter 14: Myth
I stowed Lacy’s still-breathing body inside a closet in the back of the women’s changing room. I checked her pulse. Still good. I checked my watch. It was just past eleven in the morning. I rubbed my eyes. In the space of less than three hours, my mom had been kidnapped and I was a
fugitive. And let’s not forget I’d stolen drugs, assaulted another human being and was planning on breaking into a top-security zone.
To think this was supposed to be one of the best days ever, my moment of glory. Who’d have known, right?
So much for plans.
I tossed Lacy’s things into her locker, except her pass, her now empty bag and lab coat. I stuffed my backpack and jacket into her bag. I tried on the coat. It fit.
“You still think you need to project her body?” I asked Dragon. “With this coat on…”
He nodded. “I’ll just focus on the head. That will make it easier.”
Yeah, right. We were about to attempt the impossible. One lab coat wasn’t tipping the balance much.
Just act natural. Be Lacy, I told myself. I strolled out of the changing room, holding the sensor unit and pushing a small, covered cart with tools on it. Pretending to be Lacy with a replacement unit. I entered the elevator and pressed the button for the first subterranean floor. The elevator waited. I keyed in the access code and swiped Lacy’s ID card to confirm I had top security clearance. The doors slid shut and we began sinking down. I stood in the elevator, hoping no one would enter.
Someone did.
Another guard.
What was with that? The place was crawling with them. I didn’t remember seeing this many before. Then again, I’d never been guilty of a crime before.
The guard nodded at me, pushed a button. Second floor.
Hopefully, she would be the silent type.
“You heard the news, right?” the guard asked, her tone chatty. Ready for gossip.
Just my luck.
“Keep quiet,” Dragon told me.
Seriously, if he told me that one more time, I was going to drop the unit.
I shook my head.
“You haven’t?” The guard gawked at me. Like I’d just told her I’d come from Mars in a purple spaceship. “Dr. Johansson was in a serious accident this morning.”
I choked, coughed.
“It’s not true,” Dragon soothed me. “Your mom’s fine. Ignore the lies.”
“Really?” Lacy’s voice asked in a disinterested tone.
The guard didn’t take the hint. She nodded enthusiastically. “Oh yes. She’s in intensive care. They don’t know if she’ll make it. Authorities are looking for her kid.” She leaned closer to me. Way too close. I leaned back. “They suspect foul play. The girl is a prime suspect.”
Dragon's Mind Page 5
