The Nexus

by J. Kraft Mitchell

  “What’s she doing?” Corey wondered aloud.

  When no one seemed to be looking, Jill crossed the room at the edge of the lobby behind a row of large potted plants. Then she disappeared into a door near the end of the room.

  “Get that camera!” barked Corey.

  Dizzie grimaced at him. “There’s no camera in the ladies’ room, Corey.”

  He groaned, and dashed out of the cubicle.

  “You’re welcome,” Dizzie called after him, wrinkling her nose.

  FOR the first—and ideally the last—time in his life, Corey Stone burst into a women’s restroom, gun drawn.

  There were only two stalls. He saw movement in the second, and heard a moan.

  He kicked the locked stall door open. A middle-aged woman in a business suit was on the floor next to the toilet. Her hands and feet were bound.

  Corey groaned. The bindings were the color of a prison-issued garment. The woman was gagged with a strip of the same gray cloth.

  Corey ripped off the gag. “Where did she go?”

  “Untie my hands and feet!” the woman snapped.

  “Where?” he asked again.

  “Through the ceiling! Now untie me!”

  He quickly removed her bindings. “Good,” the woman said through her teeth. “You’ve got a gun. You can kill her.”

  He was standing on the toilet lid now, ignoring the woman while he examined the panels in the ceiling. He lifted one of them away, and pulled himself into the opening. In the near-darkness he peered around the crawlspace. It led off in almost every direction.

  Jill Branch could be just about anywhere in the building by now.

  WHEN he got off the elevator, Dizzie and Holiday were waiting for him in the lobby. Dizzie looked tense. Holiday looked...like Corey would expect him to look.

  A moment that seemed like an hour passed.

  “Just one request, sir,” Corey stuttered.

  Holiday’s tone was as icy as his gray eyes. “A bit of audacity to make a request at a time like this.”

  “Let me find her.”

  Holiday waited for more.

  “Let me find her,” Corey repeated, “and the moment after I bring her back you’ll have my resignation.”

  “I have your resignation right now. But you’re going to find her anyway, Stone. You’re going to find her and put her back in that cell, or you’re going to be its next occupant.”

  COREY and Dizzie were back at her cubicle.

  “I’ve got the layout of that crawlspace,” Dizzie announced, gesturing at one of her screens. “It runs over pretty much the entire wing of the building, as you can see.”

  Corey couldn’t see because he wasn’t looking. At the moment he was concentrating on groaning and burying his face in his hands. “So she’s gone, basically.”

  “Not exactly. We can watch for her to reappear.”

  “Which could be never.”

  “No it can’t, Cor. Come on. She’s got to come out some time. And there are only so many rooms where she can do that. I’ve got my eye on all of them.” She gestured to the thirty or so live camera views she had pulled up on various monitors.

  “Except the restrooms, obviously.”

  “Right. But we’re watching the doors to all restrooms in that part of the building. If she walks out, we’ve got her. But you’d better help me watch. We don’t want to miss her.”

  “Can’t you just get Sherlock to tell us when she makes an appearance?”

  Dizzie shook her head. “Sherlock isn’t allowed to make reports about what goes on in GoCom, other than in our department. Now come on, help me watch for her!”

  “Fine.” Corey pulled his chair over and made a pretense of watching the screens.

  “Hey...?”

  “What?”

  Dizzie scooted closer to him. “We’ll find her, all right?”

  He didn’t answer, didn’t even acknowledge that she’d said anything.

  “Look,” she said, “so you made a mistake.”

  “A mistake.” He laughed dryly. “I let a prisoner escape.”

  “True—a prisoner you weren’t even supposed to be with at the time.”

  Corey stared at her.

  “Sorry, sorry! Supposed to be helping.”

  “It’s not just a mistake, it’s a disaster.” He stared at the monitors, seeing them without seeing them. “People like us only get so many chances, Diz. I was fortunate to be here—to get a second chance at my life. And now...” He blew a tired breath out between pursed lips.

  “Why’d you do it, anyway, Cor? It’s not like you. You're such a...” Dizzie looked away.

  “Goody-goody?” He managed something close to a smile for half a second.

  “I was going to say you’re such a by-the-book type of guy, but goody-goody works. Why the change? What exactly were you trying to do?”

  “Long story.”

  “We’ll be here a while, more than likely.”

  He sighed. “What it comes down to is I wanted to show that I could take some initiative. Apparently the director likes that. I’ve always been such a stickler about the rules. But that doesn’t always help. I wanted to help another way this time. I guess I got carried away.”

  “Well, you learned your lesson.”

  “Too late, though.”

  “We’ll catch her, Corey!”

  “And then I’ll be out of the department. You heard the director.”

  “He was just upset, that’s all. He’s not really going to let you resign.”

  “You don’t think so?”

  “No way. You’re too good at what you do—too important to let go. Believe me.”

  Corey felt a spark of reassurance. “Thanks,” he whispered.

  IT was after five in the evening and nothing had happened.

  “Oh, great!” Dizzie exclaimed suddenly.

  “What?” Corey asked, startled.

  “I just realized something,” she said, pulling up the map of the crawlspace again. “Look at this.”

  He looked where she was pointing. “I don’t know what I’m looking at.”

  “This is part of the crawlspace, here. And this is an elevator shaft right next to it. This here is a ventilator between the two. I’m guessing she won’t have trouble removing it.”

  “So you’re saying she can get into the elevator shaft.”

  “And ride on top of the elevator to any floor in the building.”

  Corey thumped his head on the wall behind his chair. “So it’s over. She could be anywhere.”

  She held her hand up. “Wait, wait, let’s think about this. If you were her, where would you go?”

  Corey tried to think. It was difficult under the circumstances. “Anyplace to get out of GoCom.”

  “How?”

  “To the lake, and swim back to the city.”

  Dizzie looked at him like he’d lost it. “That’s the best you can come up with?”

  “The garage,” he said, leaning forward suddenly.

  “You think?”

  “Sure! Think about it: She’s not going to chance taking the bus or the ferry. Her best chance is by car.”

  Most GoCom employees took the ferry or the skybus to work. But a few dozen of the VIPs commuted across the lake via skycar and used the parking garage.

  “I like it,” said Dizzie. She did some frantic tapping on the keyboard. “Here are the garage cams.” One of her monitors was filled with several security camera views of the parking garage.

  “Most of the cars are gone,” Corey observed.

  “That’s because most of the people important enough to have parking permits leave at five o’clock. It’s like quarter after, now.”

  Corey scooted forward. “Let’s get the footage from the time she escaped, then.”

  “She couldn’t have stolen a car. All these models are too nice—too much security.”

  “I wouldn’t put it past her, Diz. She’s good.”

  “Okay. We’ll check.” She wen
t back a couple hours.

  “There’s the elevator,” Corey pointed to one camera view. “Is that the same elevator...?”

  “That she has access to, yes. It would be her only way to get into the parking garage. I’ll speed it up.”

  They watched the fast-forward image.

  Just after 4:30 p.m. Jill Branch got off the elevator.

  Corey smiled to himself. “Now we’ve got you!” he whispered.

  PART II: Second Thoughts

  7

  SHE had a white shirt and the prescribed gray prison trousers. She looked around furtively and ran from the elevator to the first row of skycars. Dizzie changed camera angles in order to follow Jill’s path.

  “What’s she looking for?” Dizzie asked, watching Jill walk slowly from car to car.

  “She’s looking them over, trying to find the best target. She knows which ones she’ll be able to break into and which ones she won’t.”

  “There, she’s going for that dark blue one.”

  “A Daemon Millennium. Luxurious, but infamous for its weak security. She’ll go for the back window.”

  Dizzie looked at him. “Sounds like you’ve done this a time or two, Mr. Stone.”

  “Or three or four. There, what did I tell you? She knows her stuff.”

  The camera showed Jill pressing the left rear window until it made a tiny gap. She worked her fingers into the space and began manually sliding the window down slowly.

  “It’s got to be done just right,” said Corey. “If she pushes the window too far, or works it down too quickly, the alarm will trigger. She should be able to give herself just enough room...”

  Eventually she reached her arm inside the car and touched the unlock button.

  “Nice,” said Corey in admiration.

  Dizzie frowned at him. “What, are you rooting for her?”

  “Starting the ignition is another story. If she can do that I’ll be really impressed.”

  “I’m fast forwarding again. Let’s see how this ends up.”

  Jill was in the drivers’ seat for some time. But the car never left.

  “She’s giving up,” said Dizzie. “Wait, she’s getting into the back seat.”

  “Looks like she’s trying to hitch a ride. Look...she’s getting down out of sight. Quick, Dizzie, find out whose car that is.”

  She punched the license number into a database on another computer. “Daniels, Martin P.”

  “Was the car there in the live feed?”

  “Let’s check...Nope, Mr. Daniels isn’t here anymore.”

  “When did he leave?”

  Dizzie found the footage. “Here we go.” At 5:11 p.m. a somewhat pudgy bald man climbed into the blue Daemon Millennium and drove away, oblivious to his extra passenger. “That’s only eight minutes ago. He may still be driving home, Cor!”

  Corey was already on his way to their department’s garage.

  TWO minutes later a department skycar roared out of Pete’s Fish Cannery on the east side of the lake. The car hovered over the abandoned warehouses and began gliding over the water.

  “In the air,” Corey said from the wheel.

  “Sherlock just gave me Daniels’ address,” Dizzie’s voice buzzed from the console. “He lives in Palm Hills Estates. That’s half a mile south of the lake.”

  Lights flashed and sirens sang from Corey’s car as it zoomed that direction. “Does Sherlock know if he’s home, yet?”

  “No. We don’t have cameras on the streets in neighborhoods like Palm Hills Estates.”

  “I’m not seeing his car,” Corey said. “He must be nearly to his house. What street?”

  “It’s 820 Marigold Lane. I’m sending it to you now.”

  A map to the address came up on a console on the dashboard. “Got it.”

  Corey flew past the few civilian skycars on the route, and crossed the shore in moments. Houses and strip malls passed in a blur thirty feet below. The lights were starting to come on in the city as the sun sank to the right. To the left Earth glowed from the graying sky.

  “Almost there,” said Corey as manicured lawns of Palm Hills Estates came into view just ahead. The skycar dropped to street level, angled into Marigold Lane, parked on the cobbled drive of the large adobe house marked 820. Corey tumbled out, dashed to the porch and pounded on the door until a frazzled Martin P. Daniels answered.

  “Your garage!” Corey hollered at him, flashing an official-looking GoCom ID.

  “M-my what?”

  “Open the garage!”

  “Of course, of course,” sputtered Martin P. Daniels, scrambling to obey.

  A dark blue Daemon Millennium was parked in the garage. The backseat was empty. A window in the side of the garage was open. For a second Corey thought of going after her.

  Only for a second. He knew she was long gone.

  The trip back to HQ was the longest journey of Corey’s life.

  FAT Frank couldn’t sleep. He had a guilty conscience. There were a lot of nights Fat Frank couldn’t sleep, but he couldn’t remember the last time he’d had a guilty conscience. A man who deliberately rents living space to criminals and helps sell their services to even bigger criminals doesn’t have much of a conscience left.

  He decided to do what he often did when he couldn’t sleep: look at his collection.

  Fat Frank didn’t collect stamps or coins or anything as trivial as that. Fat Frank collected cars—vintage cars from as early as the twentieth century. His collection was in a warehouse past Palm Hills Estates, south of the lake. He was on his way there now in an old, rusting hatchback. He didn’t drive the cars in his collection. He didn’t do anything with them but polish them and look at them admiringly in the middle of the night when he couldn’t sleep.

  The old, rusting hatchback pulled up to a security gate outside the warehouse. A guard stepped out of a booth. “Hiya, Frank.”

  “Wanna let me in?”

  “Sure, Frank. Got your ID by chance?”

  “You kidding me?”

  “Hey, just doing my job!”

  “Your job is to open the gate for me, kid. Now move it.”

  “You said always check ID, even if I think it’s you.”

  “I also said you’re fired if you annoy me again.”

  “Right, opening the gate.”

  Cameras watched him as he parked in front of the warehouse. He key-carded his way into the foyer, got buzzed into a hallway by another guard, and key-carded into another hallway. Then he punched a long code at a keypad to turn off the interior alarm system.

  It cost a lot to protect his collection. It was even more expensive to have his collection in the first place, and sometimes more expensive yet to have pieces of his collection shipped from Earth to Anterra. It was an expensive hobby, all right. But Fat Frank could afford it since he made a nice living helping people commit felonies.

  Finally he key-carded through a thick metal door into the central chamber of the warehouse. He stood in the dark at the top of a stairway, and punched a button. One after another, banks of lights flickered to life and revealed his precious collectibles parked at random angles on the vast polished floor below. Fat Frank looked down on his twenty-three gleaming beauties.

  He felt better already.

  Number twenty-four would be arriving next week—a Benz roadster from the mid twenty-first century. Only a handful had been manufactured. As he walked down the stairs Fat Frank considered where he would park the roadster when it arrived. Maybe over there near the yellow Ferrari, he thought. He could back the Ferrari up a little, nearer that pillar, and then—

  Fat Frank paused in mid-step. He looked at the yellow Ferrari again. He squinted, but he couldn’t be sure. So he ran down the rest of the steps and took a closer look.

  No. His eyes hadn’t deceived him. It wasn’t just a weird reflection in the windshield. It was a bullet hole.

  So much for feeling better.

  He was shocked at first. Then his shock turned into anger. Eventuall
y rational thought made its way through the emotions and brought up the question: How could a bullet have gone through the Ferrari windshield?

  Fat Frank made a few sharp deductions: The bullet would have come from a gun. And that gun would have been carried by a person. And a person who could have fired that gun to put that bullet through the Ferrari windshield would have had to be standing inside his warehouse at the time. But no one could get inside Fat Frank’s warehouse except Fat Frank, and obviously Fat Frank hadn’t shot his own car, so...

  He jumped and squealed, pig-like, at the sound of gunshot. Another bullet hole appeared next to the first.

  Fat Frank whirled around. “You!” He was trying to sound menacing. He sounded more paranoid. “I should have known it would be you, Jill Branch!”

  “So you know my real name,” Jill said from the shadows under the stairs. The gun in her hand was smoking. “I didn’t give you my real name when I moved into your apartments, Frank. How did you find out who I am?”

  “Look what you’ve done!” he said in a high-pitched whine, gesturing at the twin bullet holes.

  “You’re avoiding my question, Frank.”

  “It wasn’t enough to shoot it once, was it? You had to go ahead and—!”

  Another shot echoed deafeningly. This time the windshield exploded into shards.

  Fat Frank covered his head and whimpered.

  “Talk to me, Frank. I already know what you did. I just want to hear it from your own lips, learn a few details. Like who you’re working for.”

  “I have no idea what you’re talking about!”

  This time she put three holes in the sleek yellow door.

  “Stop it!” Fat Frank was clenching his fists and jumping up and down as he yelled. “What do you think you’re doing? And how did you get in here, anyway?”

  Jill stepped out of the shadows. She was still wearing the gray trousers they’d prescribed for her back at GoCom. “Let’s just say I’m good at getting in and out of places I’m not supposed to. Now talk. Who hired you to help track me down?”