by Ann Gimpel
Her practical side intruded, and she looked for a keycard slot in the door. Picking locks was easy; it wouldn’t slow her down much. When she didn’t find one, she hunted for an electronic device and groaned when she saw a retinal scanner. She could defeat it, but she needed permission to break protocol, plus she didn’t want to kick off the building’s alarm system if there was a way around it.
“There’s a retinal scanner,” she sent telepathically to her Handlers.
“Break the lock.”
“But that will set off alarms,” she protested. Her thin, silk blouse stuck to her, and she pulled it away from her breasts, hoping to dry her damp skin.
“Give us credit for something,” the voice snarled. “We disabled them. Hurry. We don’t have all night.” After a pause, he added, “Speed is your friend.”
Glory stared at the door. She could open the lock with her mind. It wouldn’t be hard. Had the Nameless One lied to her about the alarms? They certainly weren’t beyond that, but if she couldn’t believe them, it made every shred of intel supporting this mission suspect. She closed her teeth over her bottom lip so hard she tasted blood. She had to do something. Fish or cut bait.
If she left empty handed, there’d be hell to pay. Time in a cell to contemplate her failure. She shook herself to force her body into action. It had been a long road to get where she was right now, earning enough of the Nameless Ones’ trust to be allowed out of the compound. She might never regain the ground she lost if she jack-rabbited out of here with her tail between her legs.
Fuck it.
She called the power that flowed through her mind. Electricity crackled from her fingertips, forcing the retinal scanner’s hand, and the door sprang open. Doubts that had dogged her ever since she stood outside plotting her course of action vanished. She vaulted through the door, kicked it shut, and dove into a black leather chair sitting behind an enormous mahogany desk. She flipped switches, activating the computer and movie-sized flat screen monitor.
“Come on,” she urged under her breath, fingers poised over a keyboard. A box flashed onto the screen requesting username and password information. She typed what she’d been told—and got an error message. Glory typed it again. Same message.
What the hell?
One explanation jumped to the top of the heap. The computer’s owner must have changed it after the Nameless Ones infiltrated this company. She didn’t hesitate. Assuming the username would be the same, she typed it and then created anagrams from the password in every permutation and combination. The process was quick, because her brain was just like the computer she was hacking into. With her fingers moving so fast they were a blur, she blended her consciousness with the CPU droning at her feet. When it wanted to shut down and sound an alarm after three tries to access its secrets, she reached deep enough into its operating system code to stymie the automatic rejection sequence and bypass the password entirely.
“Yes!” Glory fist pumped the air when menus rolled across the screen. She yanked a flash drive from her skirt pocket, slotted it into a USB port, and started the download, selecting files as she went. She covered her electronic presence so well that if she wasn’t disturbed, no one would ever know she’d been here. The company had safeguards to keep her from breaking in from an external computer, but they couldn’t keep her out when she was logged in from one of their own.
She wondered how the Nameless Ones acquired the username and worthless password, but they never told her things like that. They’d probably borrowed data from one of those software programs where the unwary store all their important data—never realizing how easy they are to hack. Or installed a keystroke logger. She smiled wryly. What a bunch of rubes humans were. If she ever escaped the Nameless Ones, blending in shouldn’t be too hard.
When the drive filled, she inserted another and then two more.
Her fingers skimmed the keyboard as file after file dropped into her drives. Only one more drive and she’d be done. There. Glory pocketed her flash drives, four in all, and shut the machine down. She’d just gotten up from the chair when she heard the outer office door open. Thank Christ she hadn’t turned on any lights. Floor to ceiling curtains partially shrouded windows that looked out on a busy waterfront. She raced behind one and arranged it to hide her.
Barely breathing, she waited, shifting from foot to foot. Glory rode herd on her nerves and forced stillness, concentrating hard to alter reality. It wasn’t a skill she was good at since the Handlers didn’t encourage its use.
Fuck! Go away so I can leave.
An unpleasant whirring clawed at her sensitive hearing as the retinal scanner did its work and allowed access to whoever was standing outside. So much for altering reality to suit her needs.
“I’ll just be a minute,” a man’s voice spoke, and he clumped through the door.
“Work, work, work,” a woman groused. “You promised tonight would be just us, and here we are back at your goddamned office.”
The heavy footsteps paused. “This goddamned office supports you,” the man said, his tone heavy with bitterness.
Clearly, this was an old bone of contention between the couple. While she’d never lived around humans, Glory watched plenty of television, and she spent hours each day on the Internet.
She took shallow breaths. Her nose tickled, but she pinched it to avoid sneezing. It didn’t look as if the man and his partner would be here long. The footsteps started again and then stopped.
“That’s odd,” the man said.
Glory’s heart jumped into hyper drive. What hadn’t she done? Was it the chair? Had she left it wrong, somehow? Who the fuck recalled exactly how they left their chair anyway?
“What’s odd?” Lighter steps, wearing heels.
“I always push my chair in when I leave. It’s been moved.”
“Oh for Christ’s sake, Lloyd. That high-clearance cleaning staff you were going on about the other day must’ve moved it. Let’s go.”
“Mmph. You’re probably right.”
A desk drawer opened and closed, followed by another. More steps as the couple left, door shutting behind them.
Glory didn’t breathe normally until the door closed. She counted to five hundred very slowly before she left her hiding place and exited the office. Even though it should be enough time, she remained frightened she’d run into Lloyd and his grumpy companion. Once she was in the corridor leading to the elevator at the end of the fourteenth floor, she started to relax.
I did it.
Not yet. I’m not out yet.
She rode the elevator down and made her way to the outside door. The janitor was nowhere in sight, and the door’s scanner flashed green as soon as she swiped her key card. The chill damp of a Seattle night felt like a balm on her overheated skin, and she walked briskly toward the pickup point two blocks away. The shoes didn’t bother her as much. Maybe she was getting used to them.
Nothing could go wrong now. She was in the clear. She had what she came for. Glory snaked a hand into her pocket and cradled the drives. She’d memorized the file names driving here, but they were in some kind of code that didn’t make sense, even when she ran it through her augmented brain. She’d been instructed not to take time to read any of what she’d stolen. Good thing she didn’t break protocol. As it was, she escaped detection by a very narrow margin. A few more seconds downloading, and Lloyd would’ve caught her in the act.
Breath hissed through her teeth, and her stomach clenched. If Lloyd had waltzed in before she shut the computer off, he’d have turned his office upside down hunting for an intruder, given how spun out he was about his fucking chair. She shook her head. Her instructions were to kill if she were apprehended. A quick blast to melt neurons into mush. Not that she hadn’t practiced with dummies, but she’d never actually harmed a living creature. When it got right down to it, she wasn’t certain she could.
“It’s about time.” A man dressed in black sidled next to her from the maw of a nearby alleyway.
&nb
sp; “Did you get it?” A second man, similarly dressed, joined the first. Both were tall, close to six feet four, with shaggy dark hair and heavily muscled bodies. They always wore dark glasses, even indoors, so she had no idea what their eyes looked like. The men were genetically altered, just like her. One of the government’s many experiments that had leaped its boundaries, gone sideways, and produced freaks that had to be hidden away from polite society.
The thought brought a smile to her lips, and the second man slugged her in the arm. “Look at her. Grinning like a shit-eating demon. Of course she got it.”
“Almost didn’t,” she said. “The man who works in that office came back.”
The first man turned her head toward her and furled his brows. “And?”
“I didn’t have to do anything. I hid behind a curtain until he left.”
“Excellent.” The man blew out a tense breath.
“Yeah,” the other man seconded. “Always better when we don’t have to send in the drones to clean up.”
Glory hurried to keep up with them. She’d never heard this part before. “So someone would have shown up to get rid of the bodies?”
“Ssht!” One of the Nameless Ones jabbed her hard with his elbow.
It felt like a steel pipe pounding into her side, and she grunted with pain but understood to keep her mouth shut. They came to a black SUV, and she got into the back seat, rubbing her sore ribs. The men climbed in the front, and the vehicle pulled away from the curb at a sedate pace.
She twisted around and got onto her knees, so she could reach her bundle of clothes behind the rear seat. Once she had them, she faced forward again and dug for her worn black trousers and battered lace up boots. Realizing she still had the clear, latex gloves on, she peeled them off and asked, “Is it okay if I change into my other clothes?” She kicked off the high heels before getting an answer.
“Permission granted.” The Nameless One in the passenger seat adjusted the rear view mirror so his gaze met hers. “Mind if I watch?”
It wasn’t a question. Not really, so she didn’t bother to answer, just pulled on her pants before she slithered out of her skirt. She was damned if she’d give him any more of a peep show than she had to. Because he’d want to humor her, and maybe catch a glimpse of tit, she gathered her courage. “You never answered me about the bodies.”
“That’s because you asked in a public place.” He sounded annoyingly patronizing. “Come on, babe. Aren’t you going to take that jacket off? And your blouse?”
She shrugged the jacket off and undid one button, but very slowly. Feeling like she might have the upper hand for once, albeit temporarily, she crooked two fingers and smiled. “Information first.”
“You drive a hard bargain.” He reached a hand toward his lap. “That’s not all that’s hard.”
The driver shot a glance at his partner. “She’s off limits, and you know it.”
“Who’d tell?”
“I would,” the driver said sourly. He twisted the rear view mirror and looked at her. “We never leave evidence of our missions. If you’d had to terminate anyone, we would’ve done away with the bodies, and any associated untidiness.”
“Thank you for the information.” Glory pulled a bulky gray, wool sweater out of her clothes bag and put it on over her cream-colored silk blouse. Because her head ached from the weight of her hair, she pulled the pins holding her bun in place and sheaves of shiny darkness rippled around her.
“Aw, what happened to my tit show?” The Nameless One sounded annoyed.
“It was cancelled.” Glory leaned back against the leather seat and exhaled long and loud.
The man in the passenger seat moved so fast, she didn’t understand how he could possibly have vaulted over the divider and be seated next to her. The chiseled lines of his face were set into a harsh expression, and he shoved a hand in front of her.
“Give.” He opened and closed his fist.
Understanding, she dug into the clothes bag and found the skirt she’d just removed. Glory extracted the flash drives and handed them over. “You can go back to the front seat,” she told him.
“Nah, think I’ll stay right where I am.” He leered at her and patted his lap again.
“I still don’t understand why you didn’t have me merge with the computer and do a direct download into my brain,” she said. “It’d have been much faster.” A flash of insight slammed her between the eyes. She could’ve done both—if she weren’t so scared of her Handlers.
“Too much temptation.” The man eyed her. “This way, we know you didn’t peek.”
She smelled his arousal, and it disgusted her. All the Nameless Ones disgusted her. The driver was correct about her being off limits. They left her alone for some unknown reason—or they had until now. Her and the other girls like her. Glory closed her eyes to block out the man next to her. She could still smell him, but at least she didn’t have to look at him.
She let her body sag against the seat. It was a long drive back to the compound, well over two hours. Maybe she could catch some sleep. She felt hungry, but asking them to stop at a fast food joint would buy her bupkis. A bottle of water rattled in the door; she made a grab for it, unscrewed the cap, and drained it. At least the Nameless One was keeping his distance. Good. They’d never pawed her before, but there was always a first time.
As miles clicked by, she scrolled what she knew about her origins through her mind. It wasn’t much, which was frustrating. It felt as if there was a locked file in her head, just out of reach. If she could only pop the code, everything would become clear.
Yeah, I’ve been trying to decipher that secret for years.
Sometimes, she got tantalizingly close, only to have truth fritter away in puffs of smoke.
“You’ll never figure it out,” the man sitting next to her said.
“Gawk! Stay out of my head.” She drew as far away from him as she could, hugging the door panel.
“I can’t fuck you, but no one said I couldn’t rape your thoughts,” the man retorted smugly.
Glory ignored him. She withdrew deep into the place in her mind no one could reach and hovered there. Did the ignorant asshole next to her know she could kill him from where she sat without even touching him?
An unpleasant thought intruded. Of course he knew, because he could do the same thing.
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Also by Ann Gimpel
Dragon Lore
Highland Secrets
To Love A Highland Dragon
Dragon Maid
Dragon's Dare
Earth Reclaimed
Earth's Requiem
Earth's Blood
Earth's Hope
GenTech Rebellion
Winning Glory
Honor Bound
Claiming Charity
Soul Storm
Dark Prophecy
Dark Pursuit
Dark Promise
Standalone
Red Dawn
Marked by Fortune
Shadows in Time (Coming Soon)
Alphas in the Wild (Coming Soon)
