by M. D. Cooper
“I fail to see how your problems are my problems,” Nizhoni remarked. “In fact, your problems might very well make my problems even worse.”
“Maybe,” Trey admitted. “Maybe not. The jury’s still out on that.”
“The what?” Nizhoni squinted at him.
“Nevermind.”
Reece felt like the conversation was going in an unfortunate direction. “Have you had any trouble here?”
“Eh.”
Reece waited, but Nizhoni said nothing more, merely staring at Reece.
“Care to elaborate on that? Reece asked.
“Pretty sure someone tinkered with my combine. Joke’s on them. If anything’s even a millimeter off on that baby, I know it immediately.” Nizhoni wore a smug expression.
“We heard some rustling around our first night here,” the lead guard, named Hamil, said. “Gus went out to take a look but didn’t find anything.”
“Either it was just some kids,” Nizhoni said, “or those assholes realized I had guards.”
“Is it just the two guards now?” Reece asked. She hadn’t been told that there’d been a reduction.
“Nah. Petal’s sleeping,” Nizhoni gave a noncommittal shrug. “The three of them take nine-hour shifts that overlap. It works okay. They haven’t been the biggest pain in the ass.”
From Nizhoni, that seemed like high praise.
Nizhoni continued after giving a protracted sigh. “I’m guessing you two aren’t here because you’ve solved all this and will now leave me alone to run my business in peace.”
“Afraid not,” Trey said. “Either whoever attacked H&P has now gone after us, or we have our own problems that we haven’t yet identified.”
“Well, the first is bad, but the second one would make me really not feel good about you.” Nizhoni leveled a frankly demeaning look at Reece.
“Why are you looking at me?” she protested. “He’s involved, too.”
Nizhoni shrugged carelessly. “I just don’t really like you. He’s not so bad, but there’s just something about your face I don’t care for.”
Reece tried to come up with something to say in response, but couldn’t. She looked to Gus and Hamil, but they shrugged. Whether that meant they’d become accustomed to Nizhoni’s caustic attitude, or that they agreed that her face was annoying, she couldn’t tell.
“Okay, so here’s the plan.” In truth, Reece was making up the plan even as she spoke, but she felt like she needed to establish some authority before Nizhoni completely rolled over her. “We’ll all remain here while we get a handle on the situation. I’ll reach out to some off-the-grid connections to see what’s being said about the pulse bomb. Hopefully we’ll hear something from Schramm soon. I’m not going to reach out to him, I’ll let him come to us. Nobody answers immediately. Let him leave a message and let us know what his position is.”
She cast a look around the room. “Understood? No real-time contact until I authorize it.”
Gus and Hamil looked distinctly uncomfortable.
“Technically,” she told them, “I’m officially in charge of the on-site investigation of H&P. That gives me immediate authority to give you orders to remain radio silent. You should go along with me for two reasons. One: If Rexcare is involved, we’re all in trouble, and you’re best off letting me be the bullseye they focus on while you hide behind. Two: Assuming they’re not involved, all the blame will fall on me, since I had authority over you. Working with me is the best scenario to hedge your bets.”
Hamil exchanged a look with Gus. “We’ll do it your way, for now. If we change our minds, I’ll give you fair warning.”
“Good enough for me,” Reece said. “How’s the security system? Are all the upgrades in?”
“I had all the bells and whistles put in,” Nizhoni said. “Every entry-point has surveillance and motion sensors. I hate it, but I have to protect H&P.”
“Why do you hate it?” Trey asked.
Nizhoni raised her hands, fingers spread. “I live out here for a reason. A simple life. Growing barley, harvesting barley, using hard work to process it into something. No crowds, no downtown, no citified noises. Rigging this place up like a prison doesn’t jibe with my idea of home. I’ll do what I have to, to protect what’s mine, but I hate the form that’s taking.”
Reece nodded. “I get it. This just isn’t the life you signed up for.”
Nizhoni raised an eyebrow, as if surprised that Reece might be able to relate, but she said nothing.
Trey spoke up. “There’s still no mention on the news streams about a pulse bomb going off in my neighborhood.”
“That’s not good.” Reece frowned. “That means it’s being covered up.”
She didn’t say it out loud, but a cover-up made Rexcare—or one of the other big four—a prime suspect.
Not good. Had she gotten them all into this by taking the proactive approach, or had Rexcare already had this planned?
She rubbed her hand over her face, trying to get a handle on the situation. She was surprised when Trey moved over and put a hand on her shoulder.
“Thanks,” she said.
“No problem,” he answered. “I reserve the right to make fun of you later, though, when you’re not so stressed.”
“Noted.” She blew out a breath and straightened her shoulders. “All right. Let’s run over some tactical scenarios, in case someone comes knocking.”
* * * * *
Sage from Smooth chose an inopportune time to call. Reece was briefing the third security guard, Petal, when Reece’s Link notified her of his call.
She saw no reason to delay talking to him, though. Forward motion on any front trumped all else.
Motioning to the others to stay quiet, she activated an audio-only channel. He wouldn’t find that odd. Most conversations were carried on that way.
“Hello, Sage. Good to hear from you.”
“Hello again, Reece. Apologies for waiting so late in the day to call you. I hope you didn’t think I’d fail to follow through.”
“Not at all,” she denied. “I’ve been rather busy myself, and only just now noticed how late it is.”
“I see we have a good work ethic in common, because that’s exactly how my day has gone.”
Except she was lying. She’d known exactly how late in the day it was. “What can I do for you today?”
“Are you still up for that consultation?”
Maybe she should say no, and remain holed up at H&P. It would probably be the safer thing to do. It wouldn’t accomplish anything, though, and she wanted answers—about anything—sooner rather than later. “Of course. I’m intrigued.”
“I like hearing that. I know it’s short notice, but could you come to my office first thing in the morning?” He named a time just shortly after dawn.
Apparently, he wasn’t kidding about working hard and putting in long hours. Reece rather liked that.
“Sure,” she agreed. “Should I bring any equipment with me?”
“What do you usually do for a security assessment?”
“A number of things,” she said evasively. “Is that what you want?”
“Yes, I’d like to start with that. It seems the most efficient way. I don’t like wasting time.”
“Me either. So, I have your authorization to test your security? I’ll want that signed and verified before doing so, for legal purposes.”
“Of course. Send me whatever you need. But yes, I want you to look for any areas of vulnerability, and places to improve. We live in dangerous times,” he said.
“You have no idea. I’ll be glad to help you assess your situation. I’ll see you first thing in the morning.”
She finished the call up with some standard pleasantries, then looked at Trey to fill him in.
Nizhoni jumped in before Reece could say anything. “Who was that?”
“Sage, from Smooth.”
“You’re going to Smooth? To test their security?” Nizhoni gave Reece her undivided attenti
on.
Reece felt like something had shifted under her feet, and she became uneasy. “Yes.”
“Oh, I’ll be going along for that,” Nizhoni announced.
“What?” Reece stared at her.
“That’s not a great idea,” Petal said at the same time.
Reece had already determined that Petal was highly suspicious of just about everything. It was a good trait in a security officer, though the woman tended to be a little too serious. She definitely didn’t share Reece and Trey’s irreverent sense of humor.
“You want to stay here, right?” Nizhoni leveled a hard look at Reece. “You’re safer here. And while I might be safer with you here, I might also be in greater danger with you here. And either way, this is my damn house and business. So if you want to stay here, you’re going to dress me up like a member of your crew and I’m going to get a look at the inside of Smooth.”
“You’ve never been there, I take it.” Trey said.
Nizhoni smirked. “People don’t exactly invite me out for social occasions.”
“Maybe if you were,” Reece paused, “I don’t know. A little nice sometimes, maybe. Perhaps you’d get more invitations.”
“I don’t want them anyway. But I do get curious about how others run their operations. So why shouldn’t I do a little sightseeing while I have the chance?”
“Because you might be recognized, and Sage probably wouldn’t care to have a competitor spying on his operation?” Trey suggested.
Nizhoni shrugged. “Your problem, not mine. That’s the price for using my distillery as your safe house.” After a pause, she added, “I’ll wear whatever disguise you want to put on me, though.”
“Anything?” Reece asked.
“Anything within reason,” Nizhoni amended.
“Disappointing,” Reece said. “But it’ll do.”
She looked Nizhoni over critically. Fortunately, with her lean, muscular build, Nizhoni could easily pass as part of a security team. They’d just need to do something with her hair and face to disguise her features. A cap with a brim to hide her hair, maybe, and some judiciously applied makeup to make her features appear much more angular.
“It’s not a good idea to have someone pretend to be security,” Petal said. “Even if she looks the part, she might not be able to act it.”
“I think we can probably pull it off,” Reece said. “She knows how to handle a gun.”
“That’s not all there is to security,” Petal argued. “It’s procedure. It’s how we’ve been trained to react.”
Reece gave Petal a long, hard look. “Thank you for your professional opinion. We’ll do our best to mitigate those issues. But it looks like we’re going to do this. On the bright side, you’ll be right here, keeping H&P safe.”
Petal returned the look, unflinching. “All right. You’re the ones who will go down if you get it wrong.”
“She’s right.” Trey’s eyes were on Nizhoni. “Be sure this is worth it to you.”
“At least it’s something I can do,” Nizhoni said. “Something proactive. I’m tired of trying to keep my head down, do my job, and wait for all this to blow over.”
Reece could relate to that. “Okay. Then that’s what we’re going to do. If we’re lucky, we’ll get something useful out of all this. Maybe Sage will tell us something important that implicates or exonerates Smooth in the attack on H&P. Maybe he can give some insight into some of his competitors, since he’s far more social than Nizhoni and seems to know the other players.”
“What do you think about the chances that Sage is working with Rexcare, and using this as a way to bring us in?” Trey asked.
“I think they’re low,” Reece said. “He first suggested a meeting before today.”
“Why is that relevant?” Nizhoni asked. “Did something happen today?”
Reece didn’t see a reason to tell Nizhoni about her information-mining in Rexcare’s legal database. “Because he didn’t seek me out. I just happened to be at Marky’s soiree. If he were colluding with Rexcare, I don’t think he’d be waiting for fate to throw me into his path.”
Nizhoni seemed to accept that logic and Reece relaxed.
Petal looked less convinced, but she remained silent.
“Okay,” Reece announced. “We have our work cut out for us if we’re going to get everything done and also get some sleep before morning. Let’s get started.”
Whether it would ultimately prove helpful or not, Reece finally had a clear-cut goal, and the opportunity to achieve it.
* * * * *
“Ready?” Reece looked at Trey and Nizhoni.
Energy thrummed through her veins. She had a target. She had the trigger. She was ready to pull.
Nizhoni said, “Ready.”
Trey nodded.
“Let’s do it. Stick to the plan. Don’t deviate. Escaping isn’t the plan—it’s seeing how far we can get.”
She gave Nizhoni a pointed look, because Reece didn’t trust her, but she felt satisfied by the determination she saw.
“Go!”
Trey ran to the side of the building while Nizhoni ran around the back. Reece—because she liked a challenge—ran to the front. Instead of heading for the door, though, she took a flying leap onto a huge stone monument of a bottle and tumbler that stood close to the building.
That was the easy part.
Once she’d landed on the high stone base, Reece hooked her foot into a recess and reached up to grab the lip of the tumbler. She grunted as she pulled herself up and balanced on its lip.
“So classy,” she muttered to herself. She hoped the sculpture hadn’t been Sage’s idea. If it had, she’d think less of him.
Throwing herself forward, she flung her arms around the neck of the bottle and scrambled atop the bottle’s shoulders before she slid off and fell to the pavement—which was now eight meters below.
From there, she leaped up and wrapped her legs around the bottle’s neck as well and began to shinny her way upward toward the roofline.
Good thing the sculpture had a textured surface. While it had the downside of exfoliating her skin more than she needed, it had the great benefit of not causing her to slide all the way down like ancient firefighters sliding down a pole.
Now she had to make her way up past the roofline in order to stretch a foot out and make contact with it.
Nope. That’s not going to work. She could tell immediately that she wouldn’t be able to push off hard enough with her arms to launch herself all the way onto the rooftop.
She put her left arm back around the neck of the bottle and glanced over her shoulder to gauge her position and distance. This was going to have to be an all-or-nothing thing.
Reece drew a steadying breath before sliding her feet forward and placing them against the bottle’s surface, her back to the building. She held the pose for a second before pushing off with all four limbs, sailing through the air toward the building.
She landed hard on her back, wondering how much stress the decorative roofline that jutted out from the seven-story building was designed to withstand. Carefully, she rolled over and caught her breath before rising and edging around the side of the structure.
A flush of success brought her new energy just as a high-pitched sound got her attention. An alarm. Well, at least Smooth knew something was going wrong for them.
The next bit would be tougher.
She reached the fire escape, and grabbed onto the ladder, climbing up to the next level. By the time she got to the fourth level, her arms were reminding her that fire escapes were meant to lead people down, not up.
By the seventh level, Reece had worked up a sweat, but she’d made it to the top.
She thanked the stars that Smooth’s headquarters weren’t inside a building like Rexcare’s. That would have been a different plan altogether.
She scanned the roof as she went, looking for the access panel for the water reclamation system. Inconveniently, the building’s blueprints had not noted its
location.
There. She found it. Dropping to her knees, she removed a specialized hex wrench from a pouch on her belt and pried it open.
Time to go swimming.
If she’d had more time to prepare, Reece would have had a small rebreather to make this next step easier. As it was, she’d have to tough it out with old-school breath-holding.
She inhaled deeply, blew all the air out, then repeated the process several times to mildly hyperventilate and oxygenate her bloodstream. Not so much as to make her woozy, but enough to inhibit her need to take a breath by several seconds.
Still clutching the wrench, she dropped into the large tank, grateful that it was the clean supply, and not the other thing. At least she’d had time to buy a performance wetsuit, which had her cutting through the water like a hot knife.
By the time she made it to the opposite side of the first tank, her lungs were politely asking for air. By the time she’d removed the grate over the sixty-centimeter circulation pipe into the next tank, they were demanding it.
She swam into the second tank, which was taller, and surfaced, gasping for air. She tried the access panel at the top of the tank, but it wouldn’t budge.
Once again putting her hex wrench to good use, Reece removed the hatch’s hinges and carefully lifted it free.
She climbed through and reattached the hatch, ensuring that even if the tank filled, it wouldn’t leak.
That was particularly nice of her. Thoughtful, really, not letting Sage’s company take on water damage. A real infiltrator wouldn’t do that.
She’d add that to the list of generous things she’d done for him.
Reece’s hair dripped as she climbed down the exterior ladder to the floor of the equipment room. She paused to draw it into a ponytail shape, then twist it to wring out some of the water. By contrast, her water-resistant suit was nearly done drying. Nonetheless, she no doubt resembled a drowned rat.
No matter. She’d never expected glamour from her line of work.
The equipment room had a heavy door that bore a simple electronic lock that took Reece only a minute to breach. Once through, the sounds of alarms reached her ears.
Seems like Trey and Nizhoni are doing their jobs. Good.
