The Nexus

by J. Kraft Mitchell

  “They told us not to talk to the press.”

  “I understand. In that case, maybe you could transfer me to the personnel who arrested her in the first place?”

  “Look, it wasn’t my people who let that girl escape! Make sure you write that in your story.”

  “Of course. In your view, Mr. Bollis, who was responsible for her escape?”

  “They sent someone down to move her for questioning. That’s when she made her getaway.”

  “Who sent someone down to move her for questioning?”

  “No idea. Our records just say ‘special branch’—that means we’re not supposed to know.”

  “I understand. But someone acted on behalf of the special branch to put the prisoner in your care?”

  “Sure, that would be Janice Moeller.”

  “Great. May I speak with her?”

  The warden was only too happy to transfer the call away.

  More canned music. Jill held her breath. It was unlikely that this Janice would still be at work, but there was always a chance...

  “Janice Moeller speaking.”

  “I need to speak with Director Holiday.”

  “I’m...afraid I don’t know who that is.”

  “I’m afraid you do. Put him on, please.”

  “I’m sorry, I’m not aware of any Holiday.”

  “Maybe this will jar your memory: He’s the one who had you put me in jail—until I escaped. I’m guessing he’ll be a little upset when he finds out you hung up on me instead of putting me through to him.”

  Janice cleared her throat. “Wh-who’s calling, please?”

  “Jill Branch.”

  Silence for a long moment. “I see. I’ll find out if Director Holiday is available.”

  “If he’s not on in one minute I’m hanging up.”

  It took only a few seconds. Holiday didn’t bother with a greeting. “If you’re calling to rub it in, don’t expect me to be rapt with attention.”

  “I’m calling to say I’ve changed my mind.”

  “Oh? You’re coming back to jail?”

  “I want to accept your offer.”

  He paused before replying: “You’re assuming our offer still stands after your little escapade.”

  It wasn’t all that surprising that he was being stand-offish. “My record wasn’t exactly squeaky-clean before that, but you wanted me then.”

  “And since that time you’ve done nothing whatsoever to indicate that you’re interested in joining us. Just the opposite, in fact.”

  “Other than calling you right now.”

  “For what purpose? Who’s to say why you’ve really decided to give us jingle in the middle of the night?”

  “Why else would I risk making a call and being traced?”

  “Don’t pretend you’re not blocking our trace, Jillian.”

  “Trying to, anyway. But don’t pretend your tracers are not doing everything in their power.”

  “They are, of course. Unfortunately it will still take a few more minutes.”

  “I’ll take that to mean about thirty seconds.”

  “Take it however you want. The point is, we would be foolish to extend our offer to you any longer.”

  “You wanted me because I’m good at what I do. All I did by breaking out of jail was prove it.”

  “I’m afraid that is not all you did by breaking out of jail.”

  “So I missed my chance?”

  Holiday hesitated only a moment. “All right, Jillian. You want to join us, tell us face to face.”

  “Where can I meet you?”

  “Right here at our headquarters, of course.”

  What was he playing at? “How am I supposed to get there?”

  “Oh, I’ve no doubt you’ll find a way.”

  “You’re talking about breaking into a secure section of GoCom.”

  Holiday sniffed. “You seemed to have no trouble breaking out of it.”

  “I wouldn’t exactly say it was no trouble.”

  “Take it or leave it, Jillian. If you’d like us to extend our offer one last time, demonstrate your worth one last time. It’s only reasonable.”

  She couldn’t deny it.

  “Oh, and Jillian? About the trace—I was a bit conservative in my estimation. You’ve only got a few more seconds.”

  She’d hung up before he finished saying it.

  IN his office overlooking HQ, Giles Holiday smiled to himself as he hung up the phone.

  Corey had been talking with the director when the call came. “It was her, wasn’t it?”

  Holiday nodded.

  “You traced the call?”

  “She scrambled it.”

  Corey grimaced. “Sherlock...?”

  The director shook his head. “He hasn’t spotted her. No VOFARE recognition as of yet.”

  “You’re not seriously giving her another chance?”

  “Isn’t that what we do, Corey—Give people another chance?”

  “She already had an opportunity.”

  “And she turned it down at first, yes. Remind you of anyone in particular?”

  Corey looked away. “I didn’t turn down your offer, exactly. I just needed some time to think.”

  “And so did Jillian, apparently.”

  “She broke out of jail!”

  “And that means we shouldn’t allow her to become one of us?”

  “Doesn’t it?”

  “Should it? More than any other crime she’s already committed?...More than any other crime you’ve committed in your past?”

  “I’ve committed?”

  Holiday shrugged. “You weren’t exactly a saint yourself when we took you on.”

  “I didn’t break out of jail to get away from you.”

  “A dangerous line of thinking, Corey, concentrating on what you didn’t do. There’s always something someone else has done that we haven’t done, isn’t there? Helps the ego immensely to focus on those things, doesn’t it?”

  Corey was indignant, and didn’t mind showing it. “So we’ll just take anyone, no matter what?”

  “Anyone who willingly joins our cause, yes. You disagree?”

  “It seems like we have to have some standards.”

  “Such as?” Holiday stood behind his desk and looked Corey in the eye. “How many crimes must one commit before one is disqualified? Which sort of crimes? How many opportunities must one receive before it’s too late? I suppose you have a system in mind? A system that lets you in but not Jillian, or I miss my guess.”

  Corey gritted his teeth. “No. I don’t have a system in mind. But breaking out of jail after our offer has been extended...if that doesn’t disqualify someone, then what does?”

  “How about letting someone break out of jail, due to personal negligence?” Holiday suggested.

  Corey swallowed. “Don’t I feel lousy enough about that already?”

  “If you still think you deserve to be here more than someone else, no; you don’t feel nearly lousy enough.”

  Corey didn’t reply.

  Holiday softened a bit. “I know what you’re feeling, Corey. You’re angry at the way she used you. I don’t blame you. But if you’re trying to make yourself feel better by comparing yourself favorably to her, don’t.”

  “I’ll make myself feel better,” Corey said under his breath, “when I find her and get her back behind bars.”

  MARTIN P. Daniels awoke to the sound of the living room window shattering downstairs—or rather, he awoke to the sound of his wife shrieking, and then she told him the living room window had shattered downstairs. She called the cops while he got his gun and tiptoed downstairs, trembling in his paisley bathrobe.

  He got to the bottom of the stairs and peeked around the corner. The window was broken all right. Nothing was left but jagged teeth of glass around the frame.

  The interesting thing was that the window had been broken from the inside. The shards of glass were in the back yard instead of on the living room carpet.

>   The police always arrived quickly in Palm Hills Estates. They searched the house thoroughly and determined that there was no intruder there. Mrs. Daniels then searched the house thoroughly herself, and determined that nothing was missing.

  “So why would an intruder break in silently, steal nothing, and then leave by breaking the window?” Martin P. Daniels thought out loud.

  “Maybe to make sure you got this,” said a cop. He was gesturing to a note tacked just below the broken window. Daniels hadn’t seen it before. He read the note, then tossed it aside in disgust.

  “What does it say?” Mrs. Daniels asked. When her husband didn’t answer she read the note herself. All it said was: “Thanks for the lift.”

  It wasn’t until the next morning that Martin P. Daniels realized the intruder had taken something after all: His GoCom identification card.

  THE man sitting across from Director Holiday was very tall and very bald. Those who knew him had a suspicion he was also very old. But with those tight facial features, and probably a plastic surgery or two, who could know for sure? People called him Riley. It was probably his last name. If he also had a first name no one knew that either.

  Riley was one of the few who knew Holiday’s department even existed. His official title was Chief Home Planet Liaison. Basically he kept in contact with Earth—specifically with the United Space Programs who had built MS9. He made sure they were up to date on all the excitement going on in the Anterran government, let them know his complaints, and so on. He probably had a lot of those. Complaints were one of Riley’s specialties. Holiday was reminded of this each time Riley paid him a visit.

  Today was no exception.

  “You want the bad news, or the bad news?” Riley asked. Most conversations with Riley started roughly this way.

  “I’ve heard both already,” said Holiday. “A GoCom ID was stolen, and it was probably stolen by Jillian Branch.”

  “Not probably. Definitely.”

  Holiday didn’t seem to think the bad news was quite as bad as Riley thought it was. He was trying to keep from smiling, which meant he was smirking as usual.

  “I understand you dared this Jillian Branch to find her way back here to your headquarters, is that so?” Riley crossed his long arms as he asked the question.

  “It was an invitation, not a dare.”

  “Provided she could get here by her own means.”

  “Correct.”

  “Director Holiday, I hate to question your methods—”

  “We both know you’re only too happy to question my methods. Go on.”

  Riley sputtered, continued: “Have you thought this through? Is this girl really what you’re looking for to staff your department?”

  “Whether or not you like the members of my staff is your opinion, Riley. But what my staff has accomplished is not a matter of opinion. Our success is a well-documented fact. I’ll thank you to let me do my job the way I see fit, and recruit the sort of help I want, so long as we’re getting results, which we most certainly are.”

  “Results such as letting a girl escape from the GoCom jail?”

  Holiday looked amused. “A girl who would never have been in jail in the first place if not for my people.”

  Riley sputtered again. “I’ll concede the point. But you won’t be the one to catch her again. That’s up to the other GoCom departments—you know, the ones that hire qualified professionals and don’t have to operate secretly? Don’t make us keep doing your job for you.”

  Holiday raised an eyebrow. “It’s none of my business, of course, but exactly how do you plan on catching Miss Branch?”

  Riley seemed surprised at the question. “She has a GoCom entrance ID. The minute she tries to use it, we’ll be waiting for her.”

  “Don’t you think she’s well aware of that?”

  Riley hesitated. “Well if she doesn’t intend to use it to get in the building, why do you think she stole it?”

  Holiday shrugged. “Here’s another question: Why do you suppose she’s made very sure that we all know she has it?”

  Riley was always flustered to begin with. By now he was particularly flustered. “Okay, Holiday. Since you seem to have this all figured out, how about you just skip to the end and tell me what she’s up to.”

  “I’m sure I have no idea. And I’m sure you don’t either.”

  Riley grunted. “We’ll see.”

  “We shall indeed.” Now Director Holiday didn’t try to suppress his smile at all.

  10

  IN a poorer neighborhood a few blocks east of the Aurora Bridge, Jill stood looking through a rusting chain link fence. The back yard on the other side of the fence was small, but still managed to contain a lot of clutter.

  She wasn’t looking at the clutter. She was looking where she always looked when she came back to this place: at the boughs of the old tree in the back corner of the yard. The tree house she and Jerry had built was still there, still holding together. Their initials were probably still carved on the wall inside, though she’d never bother to check. They’d promised to stay soul-mates forever, she and Jerry Grant—Jerry G, as he liked to be called. Dreams like that are very believable when you’re only eleven years old.

  But a lot can change in seven years. A lot had changed in just one year, actually.

  Jill still thought Jerry G had started drifting away from her before she’d drifted away from him. He was good with computers—really good with computers. Especially old computers and old operating systems that no one used anymore. But by the time she was twelve Jill suspected he was no longer using his skills for innocent purposes.

  Of course by then Jill wasn’t living such an innocent life herself anymore. Since then they’d seen each other once a year or so...only when they were partners in crime. Erranders could make good use of a solid hacker now and then, and the other way around.

  It seemed fitting, Jill thought to herself as she hopped the fence, that they should be partners in her very last crime.

  There was a cement stairwell leading from the back yard to the basement of the Grant home. She’d heard his music thumping from outside the fence. It was nearly deafening when she opened the door.

  Jerry G didn’t see her at first. He was at his computer—one of them, that is. Computers and parts of computers took up most of the space in the cramped basement room. A few glowing monitors were the only light. His big curly afro was silhouetted against the largest screen. The screen was filled with lines and lines of code. He was adding more and more lines as she approached him, and his hair was bobbing gracefully to the music.

  “The Grateful Dead, isn’t it?” she asked when she stood directly behind him.

  He squawked at an embarrassingly high pitch as he jumped to his feet and whirled around. In an instant he’d regained his composure and thrown his gangly arms around her. “Jillian! Don’t scare me like that, girl!”

  “Sorry.” She smiled at the sight of that scraggly attempt at a beard on his pasty white face. The beard was no better than when he’d first tried it at age thirteen. “Good to see you, Jerry G.”

  He turned down his music. “Man, it’s great to see you too, Jillian! What’s up?”

  “I need your help.”

  “Oh.”

  She saw a glint of sadness in his eyes, like maybe he’d hoped that for once she’d come to see him just to see him, no other reason. His expression stirred something inside her. For a moment she was eleven years old again and believing in the promise she’d made as she carved a J. B. just below his J. G.

  But then the moment was over and the pretending had to stop. The sadness mostly fled from his eyes, and he was all business. “Sure. Anything for you, girl.”

  “It’s pretty risky, Jerry.”

  “Isn’t everything we do nowadays?”

  “If we get caught we’re in big trouble.”

  Jerry G jerked a thumb at the code on the screen behind him. “Probably not as much trouble as I’m in if they find out about that.
Come on, Jillian, it’s me! Tell me about it.”

  “For starters, take a look at this.” She handed him an ID card with Martin P. Daniels’ name and photo on it.

  “Hey, that’s a GoCom ID! Cool. Useless, but cool.”

  “Not useless.”

  “What are you saying? You try to use that to get inside GoCom, they’ll be all over you before you know it. Especially considering the recent history between you and that place. Yeah, I heard all about that. Nice going, by the way.”

  “Thanks. I know I can’t use it that way. But can I reprogram it?”

  Jerry G wrinkled his forehead. “How would that help? They’d still catch you, even if you had another profile on the card.”

  “Trust me, Jerry. I’ve got a plan. So can you?”

  “Sure, they can be reprogrammed. But I don’t have the stuff to do it. We’d need a little thing called a Benson-Starr translator. That’s what GoCom uses to program the cards in the first place. It’s a device that attaches to a computer—the computer being used to access the card. It allows information to pass safely between the computer and the card. Hence the name.”

  “You can’t just hack the card?”

  He shook his head. “I’ve tried. The minute you try to hack it, it self-destructs.”

  “Like, blows up?”

  He rolled his eyes. “Like erases itself. It recognizes a rogue signal trying to infiltrate its contents. Besides, these IDs use a totally different information storage system than any I’ve ever seen. I can’t access them with my computer, or any computer I know of.”

  “So it’s like trying to talk to someone who speaks another language?”

  “Another type of language, even. You don’t know Spanish, but if you read Spanish you’d at least have a chance of understanding a little. It uses basically the same letters as English, and has similar roots.”

  “So it would be like if I tried to read Chinese.”

  “More like if you tried to understand ASL.”

  “ASL?”

  “Sign language. Unlike English, it’s not written or spoken; it’s a totally different type of communication. You’d need a translator who knew how to understand both types of communication. That’s why the device that passes info between computer and GoCom IDs is called a translator; it deals with two completely separate types of information.”