by Anne Tibbets
I knew what it meant.
Don’t blow it.
“Step one complete,” I heard Minnie say over my earpiece.
We waited in formation in the middle of the elevator foyer for the next approaching car. There were at least ten elevators, five on either side of the foyer. Each side had a pair of silver double sliding doors that gleamed bright and clean in the vivid light from above. Two other people, a man and a woman, waited in the same area. We remained still, neither looking at each other nor speaking aloud.
The room was deafeningly quiet, save the bells from approaching elevator cars and the swooshing noise the doors made as they opened and shut.
Two cars opened simultaneously, one on either side of the room. To my relief, the woman and man entered the one on the other side. The four of us marched into the other.
Minnie’s voice sounded through my earpiece again. “Step two complete.”
Bubbs pushed the close door button and the silver doors hissed closed, trapping us inside the elevator. “Piece of cake,” he said. He tapped the button for the ninety-eighth and the one-hundred-second floor.
My stomach dropped as we rose up into the depths of Auberge headquarters.
I glanced over at Ric. He looked pale. I considered taking his hand in mine, or reaching up to stroke the creases that had developed between his eyes as his face deteriorated with stress, but I knew it wouldn’t be right for a multitude of reasons. We were undercover. We were in the heart of Auberge, directly in the line of fire. Plus, I had to remind myself that things were different between us.
I buried my hurt deep down within and willed a familiar numbness to wipe my brain clean. I felt my face relax and my heartbeat slow. It was easy to do, given how long I’d done that very thing every day on the Line. It was an almost comfortable numbness or at least familiar. Still, it felt like a tiny death to bury my emotions that deeply. But I buried that feeling, as well.
By the time the elevator doors dinged open on the ninety-eighth floor, I was as calm as ever.
Just outside the elevator was a dimly lit hallway that brightened once Bubbs and Sonya entered.
“Good luck,” I said.
Sonya shot me a look of death for speaking aloud, but Bubbs mumbled under his breath, “See you in ten minutes.”
Before we could say anything more, the doors closed, leaving Ric and me alone in the elevator. After a fraction of a second, the car ascended up toward the top floor.
I could see Ric wanted to say something, but since the entire building was under strict surveillance, we were unable to talk to one another.
My eyes went up to the camera in the corner of the elevator, above the control panel. Then I noticed Ric’s jaw clenched as he bit down his unspoken concerns.
“Step three complete,” Minnie said over our earpiece. “Security camera loop for the hundred-and-second floor is ready to begin.”
We rode the elevator up in silence. My hands clenched with nerves. I knew what was coming next and the sudden realization of what I was about to do twisted my gut. I fought to maintain my calm facade.
Feel nothing.
Feel nothing.
It was now or never. If I failed to do my part once the elevator doors opened, this whole plan would be shot. We’d be forced to abandon everything and escape to try again, if we survived that long.
As I stared at the elevator doors and fought to control my breathing, out of the corner of my eye I saw Ric’s chest heaving. He looked as if he was fighting to control his own fear.
The elevator slowed to a stop, and I moved my right hand to the holster on my hip. With my thumb, I snapped the safety off.
Minnie’s voice pierced the pounding heartbeat in my ear. “Security camera loop in play. You are clear to proceed.”
“You don’t have to do this,” Ric whispered.
I swallowed the terror in my throat and licked my lips with my dry tongue.
The elevator stopped, and I heard the sound of a tiny bell as the doors slid open.
“We can find another way,” he said.
I stepped through the open doors and drew my pistol.
Chapter Seven
The Percer felt cold in my hands. Suddenly, it was heavy, like an ice brick clamped in my rigid fingers.
An anvil.
We took two steps outside the elevator and turned to the left. The doors closed behind us. We stood for only a moment in the hallway. Sterile and bleak, there were black marble floors and stark white subway tiles on the walls. It smelled of heat and antiseptic.
I was about to ask Ric where the guards were, when from down the hall on the left I saw them approaching.
Two men, both in Auberge uniforms. Young. They couldn’t have been more than twenty years old.
Before I lost my nerve, I pulled the silencer from my pocket and screwed it onto the end of my gun. Just as the guard on the left showed concern on his face, I raised my pistol and adjusted my stance into the proper position.
Ric had also drawn his weapon, but it turned out it wasn’t necessary.
The two young guards barely had time to fumble for their firearms before I squeezed the trigger.
Twice.
Aim, pop, aim, pop.
I caught the first one on the right in his chest. He collapsed backward and crashed against the wall. He clutched at his sternum in shock.
The other I somehow shot in the face. He was dead before he hit the floor. Bits of his skull and brain splayed across the hallway behind him.
“Good shot!” Minnie squealed from my earpiece.
Feel nothing.
I froze.
Fixed in position, the gun still raised, my shoulder aching from the recoil, I moved my feet to be sure they weren’t rooted to the floor. All I could do was stare as Ric rushed past me, holstered his pistol and went straight for the wounded guard.
He slapped the guard’s hand away from his ear so he couldn’t compress his intercom. The poor guy had slid down the wall, smearing blood across the subway tile. His eyes were wide and he gurgled as he fought to breathe. Ric pressed his hands against the bleeding, as if his first impulse was to save the dying man.
The guard looked at Ric in perplexity, and blood sputtered from his mouth. “I don’t...I don’t...under...” Then the light faded from his eyes and he went limp, slumping to the floor. His eyes remained open.
Ric stepped away from the body and gawked at the blood on his hands. “You must have nicked his aorta.”
“What?” I was too stricken to register what he’d said.
What had I just done?
Despite my best efforts to remain numb, a wave of emotion washed over me.
There was so much blood. A pool spread across the young guard’s chest.
I’d just shot two men.
Dead.
Shot them.
Murderer.
No. Not men. Guards. I’d killed two Auberge guards. Just like the ones from the Line.
Only these two hadn’t been from the Line. They looked young enough to still have pimples.
Minnie’s voice sounded from my earpiece. “You’ve got five minutes to stow the bodies and mop up before the next patrol comes by. Make that four minutes, fifty-five seconds.”
Ric moved before I did. He grabbed one of the dead guards by his shoulders and lifted, but barely got him off the floor. “Help me!”
At some point I’d lowered my gun. It dangled from my fingers as I fought to focus. My gaze couldn’t leave the hole in the man’s chest. The wound had soaked his gray uniform. There was a black, sticky splotch on his chest and abdomen. It burned into my mind’s eye with the force of a thousand red-hot pokers.
“Naya!” Both Ric and Minnie called my name, pulling me back.
�
�Grab his legs,” Ric pleaded.
I holstered my weapon with shaking hands and moved to clasp the guard’s legs under my arms, but my mind had left me. I was an empty shell. Moving, but not feeling. It felt as if I’d left my body and was floating above, watching someone else drag the dead guards a few meters down the hall and into a supply closet. Another woman used supplies from the closet to hastily wipe down the walls and floor of the hallway. But it didn’t feel like me.
“Resume patrol in twenty seconds,” Minnie said over the earpiece. “Loop to end in fifteen, fourteen...”
Her words sounded in my ears, but I barely heard them. I stood in the middle of the hallway and watched as Ric used the vinegar solution to clean the blood from his hands. He wiped them on the pants of the dead guard, then closed the supply closet and assumed his position beside me. It was time to continue the patrol.
Ric breathed into my ear. “You ready?”
I stared straight ahead, my eyes burning. I reminded myself to blink.
“And go,” Minnie said.
My feet moved, but I wasn’t sure how. We marched down the hall. It curved to the left. I focused my attention on keeping pace with Ric. Our boots stomped down the hall with a sickeningly steady rhythm.
“Step four complete,” Minnie said from my earpiece.
“Good,” Sonya answered from two floors below. “Administering payload in thirty seconds.”
We followed the bend of the hallway and arrived in another hall, just like the first.
Ahead, two guards, both men again, stood watch in front of a single silver door. My body marched unwillingly toward them.
“Cutting it a little close, aren’t you?” asked the older of the two guards.
Ric shrugged, but I remained silent. I was too afraid of what would come out of my mouth if I opened it.
The older guard rolled his eyes, pulled his ID badge from his pocket and flicked it over the scanner panel next to the silver door.
As per procedure, all four guards were supposed to enter the server room and pace the aisles once. Then out. The two previous guards would then proceed down the hallway to the right, leaving the new arrivals at the door for five minutes until the next pair of guards came.
Somehow, according to Minnie, Auberge felt safer knowing the room was searched every few minutes by different pairs of guards, guaranteeing fresh eyes and, with a continual turnover, little chance of corruption.
The screen panel flashed green under the older guard’s badge. When the door buzzed, the younger one opened it, and we entered, maintaining the standard two-by-two march formation we’d used upon our entry into HQ—them in the front, us in the back.
Inside the new server room, the air felt hot and humid. There was a low buzz from the running computer drives. Auberge had structured the room much the same as the old one. There were tall metal shelving units from floor to ceiling that housed large black metallic hard drive cubes, stacked atop one another like a child’s blocks. The shelves created a mazelike labyrinth. We followed the other guards as they walked up and down each aisle.
Back and forth. Back and forth.
Finally, when we reached the center of the room I noticed out of the corner of my eye that Ric had dug into his pants pocket. When his hand retracted, he held the tiny magnetic flash drive Minnie had created.
“The second unit on your left,” Minnie said from the earpiece.
We turned a corner, marching behind the other two guards. With the smallest of movements, Ric stuck the magnet onto the designated unit as we paraded by.
“Step five complete,” Minnie said.
We rounded another corner, trooped for another few meters, and then turned to exit the server room.
The older guard used his ID badge on the scanner inside and, as before, the younger one opened the door when the panel flashed green and the door buzzed.
Out in the hallway, the two other guards continued marching off and away to the right, leaving Ric and me at the server room doors.
Presumably we were to wait the next five minutes for the next pair of guards to appear, so we could patrol the server room again. But we ran the risk of being discovered the longer we lingered.
Instead, we waited as Minnie checked the hallway security cameras for the other pair of guards to disappear into the elevator.
“Go,” Minnie said.
Ric and I turned to the right and marched down the hallway, leaving the server room door unguarded. It was a risk. But one that needed to be taken.
Sonya’s voice sounded in my ear. “Team One in position.”
“Team Two is on its way,” Minnie said.
Rounding the curved hallway, we arrived at the elevator just as the door opened. Ric and I entered, then I pressed the button for the ninety-eighth floor with my knuckle. As we descended, my stomach rolled and seized.
Almost out.
We were almost done.
My distant soul was slowly descending from on high, and I felt my pulse quickening and my throat constricting at the thought of what we’d just done. The moment Minnie activated those flash drives, all hell would break loose. The idea was both exciting and petrifying.
The elevator slowed as we approached the ninety-eighth floor. The car came to a stop and the doors dinged, sliding open.
In the hallway, Sonya and Bubbs stood waiting.
Ric and I stepped back so they could enter.
Inside the elevator, Bubbs tapped the button for the lobby. We rode down in complete silence, although I was breathing so hard I was sure the others could hear.
When we reached the lobby, we traipsed into the elevator foyer, which had a few random people waiting, then we filed through the lobby.
As per procedure, we were forced to show our badges to the front security desk upon our departure, but no palm scan was usually required to exit. So it took us off guard when the large security officer in the corner held up the palm scanner, indicating we should stop. “Hey,” he said. “I never got you signed in properly.”
I hitched in my step for a moment, wondering if we were going to stop, but Bubbs and Sonya continued their steady march toward the front exit, so Ric and I did the same.
“Hey,” the guard called again.
Was he going to try and stop us?
“Hey!”
We continued through the entry and past the two guards at the glass sliding door. Out in the street, the smell from decades of rotting trash slapped me in the face but we pressed on, turning to the right and continuing down the sidewalk as if nothing was wrong at all.
Sonya raised her finger and pressed her earpiece. “Activate the virus download.”
After a second, Minnie’s voice answered, “Activated.”
Sonya talked over her shoulder as we continued to march. Her face looked lightened, almost illuminating as it pulsed with hope and an almost imperceptible sliver of fear. “It ends now.”
Chapter Eight
We were only a few meters away from HQ when I heard it. There was an audible snap, as if a gigantic fuse had been blown, and then the power in headquarters groaned as it died and withered away to a wisp.
Dissolved.
I knew we were supposed to keep walking, to ignore what was happening around us, but I broke formation and turned to watch. The lights emanating from the hundreds of HQ windows dimmed, flickered and then disappeared altogether.
The building’s sudden darkening did little to affect the streets below. It was late in the morning and the sun sat low in the sky, so the loss of light was hardly noticeable.
Ric spoke to me through clenched teeth. “Don’t stop.”
All I could do was stare. He grabbed my elbow and tugged me along, but I barely noticed my legs moving. I only wanted to gawk over my shoulder at the spectacle behind.
HQ was fully engulfed in darkness, and the gloom spread like wildfire. Buildings surrounding headquarters and along the city block dimmed and descended into blackness. Following them, more structures lost power down the row, and like a ripple on a lake, power disappeared, a stone skipping across the water’s surface.
Traffic lights shut off and intersections came to a screeching halt. The air filled with the sounds of honking cars, gasps of shock from the people around us on the sidewalks and streets, and the unmistakable din of electrical silence.
Residents and shop owners alike filed out of their dark homes and businesses and stood on the sidewalks, looking around and then settling their perplexed faces upon the darkened HQ building.
“Is your power out, Artie?” one man near us asked another.
The man nodded. “Yeah. The building next door on the other side too.”
“What the hell happened?”
“Oh, my God, look at headquarters.”
I turned and looked again. Ric tightened his grip to keep me moving. But I noticed guards had filed outside the HQ building and were forming a human barricade around the entrance. We rounded the corner and lost sight of it, and then my eyes focused forward.
There was a growing mob blooming in the center of the street, milling about the stopped cars. My feet skidded to a halt, not wanting to walk into a massing crowd.
“Don’t stop!” Ric said again.
I walked, but my limbs felt detached from the rest of my body as I tried to concentrate on the back of Sonya’s head. I wondered how she felt about Central’s reaction to the power outage and if she was as scared as me.
It’s so crowded.
My thoughts instantly went to Shirel and the girls.
I hoped they weren’t frightened, as well. And that they were safe, holed up somewhere away from the growing crowds.
“Ask those guards,” a woman beside me spat.
We marched by her darkened brownstone. A small group from the crowd pointed in our general direction.
“Yeah, what’s going on?” one man questioned Bubbs.
