by Scott Meyer
He fled through the market as quickly as he could. The people milling were doing a pretty good job of parting around him, not because they wanted to assist him in fleeing, but rather because they didn’t want to be anywhere near him when he was caught. The man scanned the path in front of him looking for anything that might slow his pursuer down. He saw a merchant selling heavy woven rugs. As he passed, he grabbed one of the large rolled rugs, a hefty specimen that was taller than himself standing on its side, and he heaved it down in his wake. The gambit cost him most of his momentum, and he struggled to get back up to speed. As he stumbled forward, he turned for a moment, hoping to see the monster chasing him trip and fall, or maybe get knocked off of his feet by the mass of the rug. Instead, what he saw was the man catching the rug, and smoothly tossing it aside without ever breaking the rhythm of his stride. Even through his mounting panic, the man had the wherewithal to think, At least he didn’t throw it at me.
The man turned his attention to the path ahead just in time to see a silver bolt of light shoot down out of the sky and land directly in his path. It was Martin, who had landed in a crouch, and was holding his staff out, parallel with the ground. The man tried leap over him, like a hurdle, but the force field Martin had just created prevented that. He bounced like a rag doll, and would have landed in a miserable heap on the ground if the president’s servant hadn’t caught him. Instead, he stood, locked in place by the servant’s muscular arms.
Martin said, “Good work. I’d have lost—”
But Martin was stunned into silence when the servant held the man upright with his left hand and brought his right fist down with all of his power onto the man’s head. The servant stood a full head taller than the man he’d been chasing, so the blow effectively hit him on the top of the head, and caused his knees to buckle beneath him. The servant now held the man’s full weight with his left arm, not that it mattered. The servant held him up more solidly than the man’s own legs had. The servant drew his right arm back again, and hit the man again, this time in the face. He lifted his elbow so that it also hit the man’s face as he followed the punch through. Then, he backhanded the man as he drew the arm back to punch him again.
Martin said, “That’s enough.” The servant took no notice. The man’s head lolled back sickeningly as the servant struck him in the face again and again.
Phillip landed next to the servant, and yelled, “He’s had enough!” It did nothing to stop the servant from hitting the man several more times. He adjusted his grip to hold the man’s head upright, in a convenient punching position, as clearly the man’s neck could no longer do the job on its own.
Martin ran forward and stuck his staff between the two men and said, “Muro,” placing a force field between them. The servant still held the man up with one arm, but the other arm couldn’t penetrate the barrier to strike him again, instead stopping as if he had punched a wall.
Martin said, “Let him go.”
The servant kept his grip on the man, and felt the force field with his other hand, looking for a hole or a weak spot. Martin noted that for a moment the servant’s hand actually left a smear of the other man’s blood suspended on the surface of the force field as if it were a sheet of glass.
Martin growled, “I said, let him go. He’s unconscious, he’s not going anywhere. Let him go.”
The servant finished his examination of the force field. He looked at Martin for a moment, smiled, then jerked his left hand in toward his body, smashing the man’s face against the other side of the force field. He looked Martin in the eye as he rubbed the man’s face into the force field, then, with a smile aimed at Phillip, he released his grip, leaving the man completely without support. With some effort Martin and Phillip caught the man and lowered him gently to the ground. The man had a pulse, but he was out cold, and looking at him, Martin wasn’t sure when or even if he would wake up.
Martin was dimly aware of the crowd murmuring and receding away from him. He looked up and saw a clear disk slowly descending from the sky, carrying Brit the Younger and Ida. Gwen flew alongside under her own power. The disk hadn’t reached the ground before Ida leapt off, shouting, “Nilo! Thank God you’re not hurt!” She ran to her servant and threw her arms around him. Nilo smiled at Martin as he and the president turned and walked away.
Gwen looked down at the man lying unconscious and bloody on the ground. “Is this him?” she asked.
Martin said, “Yes.”
Brit asked, “What happened to him?”
Martin glanced toward Nilo’s retreating form and said, “He got carried away.” Brit and Gwen exchanged a look that conveyed several emotions. Surprise was not one of them.
Brit said, “We have to get him to a doctor,” and nobody disagreed. Phillip and Martin placed the man onto the disk. They all piled onto the disk as well, and at Brit’s direction, it rose smoothly into the air. As they flew through the central empty volume of Atlantis, traveling as the crow flies to the nearest doctor, Martin shook his head.
“I don’t get it,” he said. “This is the guy I chased from the roof, and he was the only one up there, but I thought whoever was trying to kill you was using magic to do it. He’s not one of the delegates, and there are no male wizards from Atlantis. Maybe we were wrong about the magic.”
Brit said, “No, we weren’t wrong.”
Martin asked, “How do you know?”
Brit frowned and turned to Gwen, saying, “Go ahead. Show them.”
Gwen held up the arrow that had been fired at Brit. Gwen held it motionless for a moment, then lightly threw it straight up into the air. It tumbled as it flew upward, then it straightened and flew, as if pulled by a powerful magnet directly at Brit. It struck her in the top of her head and stuck there. Brit winced a bit, and then pulled the arrow away.
Phillip said, “I guess it’s a good thing nobody got between you and the arrow.”
“Yeah,” Martin agreed. “That could have happened really easily, too.” Martin turned to Brit. “If we don’t figure out who keeps trying to kill you soon, someone could get hurt.”
Martin grabbed the arrow from Brit’s hand and pulled it a foot away, holding it lightly enough that the razor-sharp tip remained pointed directly at Brit no matter how he moved it. Then, he let it go, and it immediately stuck back to Brit. Martin chuckled and said, “That’s really cool.”
“Is it?” Brit asked. “Is it really?”
Gwen put a reassuring hand on Brit’s shoulder and in a sympathetic voice, said, “It is. Sorry.”
19.
The Treasury Department’s business generates paperwork, and that paperwork can’t just be thrown away; it must be stored. Of course, all businesses generate some paperwork. Many generate enough for it to be worthwhile to hire an outside company to store it all in a secure manner. This approach doesn’t work for the Treasury because outside contractors cost more than simply buying the cheapest warehouse in the worst part of town, stuffing it full of boxes of paper, and hiring a guy to guard it. Outside contractors wasted money on things like air conditioning.
The Treasury kept several such warehouses in Los Angeles. Miller and Murphy had visited them on more than one occasion, so they knew what to expect. They pulled up to the massive roll-away door in the beat-up old Ford Fairlane the department had left waiting for them at the rail yard. As instructed, they had waited until dark, and after a brief delay, they sprinted to the car, drove to the warehouse and flashed the headlights, or in the case of this car, the one working headlight, three times. The security guard pushed the door open and let them in. Murphy pulled the car into the warehouse, turned the key, and waited roughly ten seconds for the engine to finally die.
The warehouse was only about one-third full of musty old papers, so there was plenty of room inside to park. Miller, Murphy, and Jimmy got out of the car. Here in the warehouse was the first chance any of them had gotten to look at the car in
the light, and it was a good thing. If they had seen it clearly before, they might not have ridden in it voluntarily. The car gave one the impression that the faded paint was the only thing keeping the patches of rust together.
The security guard looked young and very tired. He shook Agent Murphy’s hand enthusiastically. “It’s good to finally see you gentlemen.”
“Yes,” Murphy said, “sorry we’re late. Security at the rail yard was heavier than expected. We got cornered and had to hide inside a shipment of sewer pipe until the coast was clear.”
The guard released the handshake and walked over toward the corner of the warehouse floor. It was obviously his workstation, as it had a chair, a table, an old boom box, and a walkie-talkie. The rest of the room was nothing but tall shelves covered with boxes full of paper. The guard said, “What’s done is done. You’re here now. If there’s any trouble, just radio the supervisor. He’ll send backup.” The guard hoisted a backpack up from the floor next to the chair and started toward the door.
Agent Miller said, “Wait a minute, where are you going?”
The guard said, “Home.”
Miller said, “Just hold your horses. You’re being paid to guard this warehouse.”
“Yes,” the guard explained. “From five P.M. until one A.M. It is now 1:45. I waited around an extra forty-five minutes for you guys to turn up. You’re welcome, by the way, and now I’m going home.”
Agent Murphy stepped in to play the peacemaker. “Okay, fair enough, kid. Go get some sleep. Where’s your relief?” Murphy pointed toward Jimmy. “We should talk to him about where our associate here is going to sleep.”
The guard said, “You’re my relief, and unless the table or the floor look comfortable, I’d suggest that he sleep in that car of yours.”
“What do you mean?” Miller asked. “We’re not your relief. We’re federal agents.”
The guard said, “Yeah, and the powers that be decided that if two armed federal agents were going to be here guarding a prisoner anyway, then paying for an armed guard just to watch the boxes of paper surrounding the prisoner was a waste of taxpayer money.”
Miller said, “We can’t stay here. We were supposed to just drop our prisoner off and go home!”
The guard said, “Well, I’m sorry, but there’s nobody here to drop your prisoner off with, so you’re either going to have to leave him in charge here, or you’ll have to stay here with him.”
Murphy buried his face in his hands. “Okay, look, Miller, none of this is the kid’s fault. He’s already put in a full day. It’s the middle of the night. I say we let him get out of here.”
The guard said a quick thank you and made tracks for the door. Before he’d made his escape, Murphy yelled, “Hey, kid, one last question. Where’s the bathroom?”
The guard said, “There’s a Porta-John out back.”
Agent Miller turned bright red. He yelled, “A Porta-John?! We’ve spent the last five days living in a boxcar! Our only bathroom was an open door, a four-pack of TP, and a pint of Purell! Now we’re back in civilization, and you tell us all we’ve got to use as a bathroom is a Porta-John?”
The guard shrugged. “Yeah. Sorry.” The guard paused, and looked at the hand he’d used to shake with Agent Murphy. “I don’t suppose you’ve got any more of that Purell left, do you?”
In the end, it was decided that one of the agents would stay and keep an eye on Jimmy and the papers while the other went home and got a shower and some sleep. Murphy volunteered to stay for the first watch, because nobody was convinced that Jimmy would survive the night if he was left alone with Agent Miller. Miller called a friend to come get him and take him home so that Murph and Jimmy could use the Fairlane as an emergency means of transportation and as a dormitory. Nine hours later Miller returned in his own car. Murphy and Jimmy left in the Fairlane and went to Murphy’s place. Murphy turned off all electronics and they took turns showering and shaving.
Once everyone was clean, rested, and ready, they reconvened at the warehouse. While they were gone, Miller had called in a favor from his brother, so there was now a camper parked in the warehouse. They would still have to leave to shower and buy groceries, but at least Jimmy and whichever agent was taking a turn guarding the place at night could live like civilized people, or, at the very least, like civilized people who were camping.
Now that they had set up housekeeping, they all agreed it was time to get to work. Miller went out and gathered everything on Jimmy’s shopping list. He also stopped by the office to pick up a spare computer and to yell at anyone who dared ask him where he’d been.
When he returned, Jimmy and Murphy helped him unload the car. As he hefted the case of canned chili over the lip of the trunk, Jimmy said, “Gentlemen, if all goes according to plan, this should all be over very soon.”
“All this crap is going to help you prove how all these people have been embezzling money and then disappearing for all these years?” Agent Miller asked, carefully placing the telescope and tripod on the floor next to the chili.
“Yes,” Jimmy said, returning to the car’s trunk for the last bit of equipment. As he rummaged in the ancient car’s enormous trunk, he said, “You two set up the computer. It’ll need to be connected to the Internet. Will we need to have someone come and install that?”
Murphy said, “No, I can tether it to my phone. It won’t be a fast connection, but it’ll work.”
Jimmy came up from his expedition to the bottom of the trunk with a roll of kite string and a large red scented candle. Jimmy read the bottom of the candle. “Cinnamon and holly berry. A little Christmassy, don’t you think?”
Miller replied, “It was on clearance,” daring Jimmy to push the issue further.
Jimmy, wisely said, “Fair enough.” He tucked the candle and the string under his arm and ripped open the plastic around the case of chili, picking up two cans. He started toward the camper, saying, “You two tell me when you have the Internet up and running.”
“Yeah, will do, boss,” Agent Miller said, “and just what are you going to be doing while we’re out here working?”
Jimmy said, “I’ll be heating up the chili,” as he disappeared into the camper.
An hour later everything was set up. Agent Murphy was disappointed in himself that he hadn’t figured out Jimmy’s plan earlier, but Agent Miller was disappointed in Jimmy that he’d thought of the whole cockamamie thing in the first place, so it all balanced out.
Miller and Murphy sat at the table with the computer between them. Miller held an empty chili can. The can had a hole punched in the bottom, and the string, which was coated in holiday-scented wax, stretched one hundred feet to the far end of the warehouse, where Jimmy sat in a lawn chair with the other empty can, the telescope perched on its tripod in front of him, and a steaming hot bowl of chili resting in his lap.
Jimmy heard some noise emanate from the can, but he couldn’t make it out. He shouted into the can, “You have to hold the string tight and enunciate clearly!” He said it loud enough that the agents could probably hear him without the can.
Agent Miller pulled the string so tight that it nearly came out of Jimmy’s hand. Jimmy put his ear to the can, and heard Agent Miller shout, “I said, this can smells like chili!”
Jimmy put his mouth to the can and said, “Yes, that’s why I specified a scented candle. Most of it is still in the camper if you want to light it up.”
Jimmy took a spoonful of chili and watched the two men in the distance talk, then felt the line stretch tight again. He put his ear to the can.
“All right,” the distant, tinny voice of Agent Miller said, “Murph says he’s tapped into Xerox’s system. You know, you told us that what that Banks kid and all the rest of you did wasn’t illegal. Well, I got news for you—Murph has already broken about a dozen laws just to get to this point.”
Jimmy said, “I didn’t s
ay it was legal, I said it wasn’t illegal, and I was referring to the way he got his money, not the things he did to find out how to get the money. Besides, the way I’m showing you isn’t the exact way he learned about this. It’s the way I did.”
Jimmy watched the screen through his telescope and sent directions through the cans-and-string telephone to help Agent Murphy navigate through the long-disused vestiges of Xerox’s computer system. They went down many a blind alley as Jimmy tried to guide their way from memory. Jimmy surprised himself on more than one occasion by remembering seemingly nonsensical commands and near-random strings of characters needed to make the ancient UNIX system do what he wanted. Finally, after hours of searching, they found their way to the directory that Jimmy needed. He had dreamed of this moment, plotted, schemed, and worked toward this moment for thirty years, and now, through his cheap telescope, he could see the directory there on the screen, exactly as he remembered it.
The directory held one file, which was named repository1-c.txt.
Jimmy took his eye away from the telescope and said into the can, “Open the file.”
Jimmy heard Agent Miller say, “He’s opening it.”
After a second, Miller said, “Okay.”
Jimmy closed his eyes. A single tear rolled down his cheek. It was the happiest moment of his life.
Agent Miller asked, “Okay, Jimmy, what’s the password?”
Jimmy’s eyes snapped open. “What do you mean, password? The file isn’t password protected!”
“I don’t know what to tell you,” Miller said. “It’s asking for a password.”
