Immortal Brother Where Art Thou (The Immortality Curse Book 4)

by Peter Glenn

  And the dude’s chair. Now that was the true meaning of comfort. It was plush purple leather, and I could already tell it had grooves in all the right places.

  “Nice,” I whispered, letting out a low whistle. “This guy’s got taste.”

  I sat down in his chair and literally melted into the leather. For a moment, I let the feeling overtake me, breathing in slowly and letting myself enjoy feeling spoiled for a little bit. But only for a moment. I still had a job to do.

  It was almost a shame I was going to illegally access his data and put him at risk. But what can you do? Family comes before everything else, you know?

  Tapping the mouse on his laptop, I watched as the screen flared to life. Thankfully, the VP of Human Resources hadn’t locked it when he’d left. Which I’d kind of expected. When you’re asked to leave the building for a bomb threat, you don’t always take all the necessary precautions. Another stroke of luck on my part.

  “You’ve got a lot to learn about security, Delta Fox VP,” I mumbled, chuckling just a little to myself. I’d come prepared to deal with passwords, but I was just as glad I wouldn’t have to. My methods were a little heavy handed, and I was hoping to leave without being noticed.

  The image on the laptop’s screen looked to be of the VP’s kids hanging up ornaments on a Christmas tree. How sweet. Maybe if I actually wanted kids one day, I’d take something similar with them.

  Not that I was ever going to want kids of my own. Kids were trouble—present case a glaring example of that. I never did understand why Taio had had a kid in the first place.

  I clicked around and found the company intranet quickly enough. It looked like the guy kept that tab open. Again, not really a shocker. There was a lot of gold on the average intranet.

  Scanning through several tab headers on his browser, I finally found the one I wanted.

  “Employee manifests,” I said aloud.

  Quickly, I clicked on that one. A whole bevy of names, locations, and other data assaulted me. It was too much, and I didn’t have the time to search through it all.

  I fished around in my fanny pack for my thumb drive and jammed it into the side of the laptop. Of course, I got the USB angle wrong the first time and almost swore, but the second time, it slid in nice and easy.

  From there, it was a simple job of copy and paste. I could go through the actual data later when I was safe. I just had to steal it for now.

  My ears perked up as I heard a noise coming from the outside hallway. It sounded like the same beep that had granted me access to this room.

  I froze like a deer in headlights as the hairs on the back of my neck stood on edge. If I was found out now, I would be in deep trouble.

  Worst of all, Bao’s fate would remain a mystery.

  The cherrywood office door inched forward just a little as I heard the loud click of the lock disengaging. I sat there, unmoving, holding my breath. A small, fleeting thought said I should try and hide, but I knew there was nowhere big enough to hide me in here. There was nothing for it. I was caught.

  The door opened a little more, and a small, wiry man poked his head into the office proper.

  “Yes?” I said through clenched teeth.

  “Oh! Sorry, I didn’t think anyone was in here!” the wiry man called out.

  It was only then that I saw he was wearing the jumpsuit of a janitor, and I could make out the hint of a mop and bucket behind him.

  “Yes, well I’m a little busy. Can you come back in an hour?” I asked.

  I tried to speak in my best evil corporate overlord voice and likely bombed it entirely. My mind raced. I was found out. I just knew I was found out. This was it for me. So long, lovely free existence. Hello prison cell.

  But against all odds, the janitor waved at me. “Sure thing,” he said. Then, just as quickly as he’d come, he was gone.

  I let the breath I’d been holding onto the entire time go, lips trembling all the while as I felt my heart start up again. Somehow, I’d fooled the guy into thinking I was the VP. I could not believe my luck. I patted Grax’thor a time or two. No doubt she’d had a hand in it.

  Another beeping noise greeted me a second later, and I realized it was the laptop telling me my file had been copied.

  With sweaty, shaky fingers, I gripped onto the flash drive and shoved it back into my fanny pack. Then, I minimized the browser to make the computer look as much like I’d found it as I could and promptly got up and left the room.

  How long had it been? Would the backlog at the elevators be clear by now, or would they still be stuffed with people? I wasn’t sure and didn’t want to risk bumping into a large crowd coming off them. If any of the VPs saw me, they’d likely know in an instant I didn’t belong up here. So I worked my way back down those torturous stairs to get back to the main floor.

  Man, my legs were going to kill me tomorrow.

  I was still trembling when I passed by the reception area a few minutes later and tossed a wave toward the blonde one. She was a bit of a cutie. If LaLuna and I weren’t still a thing—I suddenly hoped we were very much still a thing—I’d totally date her. She gave me a slight wink as I whooshed past.

  On my way out, I stuffed Micah’s badge into the lost and found slot, and then I left the Delta Fox campus as quietly as I’d entered it.

  If my luck held, no one would even know I’d been there.

  6

  “You did what!” Taio shouted at me.

  It was much later that day, and I was back at my apartment. I’d come in all smiles, brandishing the little flash drive like it was the world’s greatest treasure, and Taio had done nothing but bitch at me ever since.

  Humph. Some hero’s welcome.

  Not that I should have expected any better, even given that I was helping him out with his own family’s problems. Problems that probably only existed because he was a crappy father. I was guessing on that part, but based on the general way he treated me, I could only imagine what his home life was like.

  “Relax,” I said, waving my hand dismissively in his face. “It’s no big deal, really.”

  Taio was fuming. “You called in a bomb threat, stole someone’s badge, broke into a secure facility, stole their personnel data, and you say it’s no big deal?”

  I rubbed my chin with my free hand. “Well, I guess when you say it like that…”

  “Were you followed home?” He started pacing the floor, shooting me accusatory glances. “Are the police on their way? Do we need to vacate the premises?”

  “Pssh! I was careful! It’s all good, I promise!”

  At the very least, I was reasonably certain I hadn’t been followed. I’d checked behind me several times and taken three different buses that went the wrong way before finally walking my tired-ass legs the rest of the way. If someone had followed me through all that, they were a real pro.

  Taio got up in my face and stared deep into my eyes. I could feel the heat rising off of him in waves. “Are you sure no one followed you?”

  “Positive,” I said in the firmest voice I could muster. Which wasn’t much at that moment, what with him glaring at me. “I wasn’t followed.”

  Taio continued to stare into my eyes for a moment, then finally, he backed off and stalked over to the far side of the room.

  “Good,” he said slowly as he paced back and forth. “At least I don’t need to worry about breaking you out of prison, too.”

  “Hey!” I whined. “Give me a little credit here. I could have gotten myself out of prison!”

  Well, probably not really. But if I’d begged Mei, she probably would have at least posted my bail after me bawling on the phone with her for twenty minutes. That should count, right?

  Still, I wasn’t about to tell my brother that. Let him think I was at least semi-competent.

  Taio stopped pacing and shot me another evil glare. “Humph,” he muttered. Seemed he didn’t believe me, either. Not that I could exactly blame the guy.

  “Okay, so you weren’t followed.
But how can you be certain no one’s going to come for you?” Taio asked as he continued to wear a hole in my worn-out carpet. Part of me briefly wondered if it had ever seen that much action.

  “Relax, I was wearing an illusion charm the whole time,” I told him.

  I took the charm out of my pocket and threw it at him. It was spent now, but he’d still be able to inspect it and see that it was what I said. Of course the big lug caught it easily, even though I hadn’t warned him. Darn perfect older brother.

  Taio held the small charm in between two fingers and held it up to the light. After a moment, he tossed it back to me and grunted.

  “Fine,” he said. “Maybe you’re not a complete mess.”

  Was that a compliment? Nah, there was no way. Taio wouldn’t compliment me. “Well, thank you,” I replied after a moment, taking it as one anyway. Beggars can’t be choosers.

  “Humph,” Taio grunted again. He eyed me for another second or two, then went back to pacing the floor.

  “See?” I said. “I told you I had it all handled.”

  Taio gave me the stink-eye, but I ignored it. “Now, if you’ll excuse me, I need to go find out what happened to Bao.”

  That gave him pause. He stopped in the middle of his stride and came over to where I was standing. Thankfully, he didn’t get quite as close to me as the last time, though it was still a little close for my comfort. “Oh? And how are you going to do that? With your little shiny Yoda stick?”

  He was pointing at my flash drive. It had a little Yoda head on it. What can I say? I’m a bit of a Star Wars fan. And frankly, I was proud of him for catching the reference. I’d never taken Taio for the type to watch sci-fi films.

  “Yes, with my little Yoda stick,” I shot back at him, mimicking his mocking tone from before.

  I pushed my brother a little to the side and made my way over to my own laptop. It was nowhere near as sleek or nice as the one in the VP’s office had been. In fact, it was barely good for web surfing and social media, and the cover had what I was pretty sure was a series of root beer stains and a half-faded Duran Duran sticker on it.

  Sticking the flash drive into the side, I waited as the internal mechanisms whirred to life and recognized the device. Thankfully, the drive came up without too much trouble.

  Taio scoffed. “What are you doing, little brother?”

  “Like I said, I’m saving your son.” You arrogant little helpless bitch. But I didn’t say that last part. I really wanted to, but I kept silent anyway. Antagonizing Taio had never gotten me anywhere good, and it wouldn’t help here, either.

  In fact, the sooner he and his kid were out of my life, the better. Then I could go back and apologize to LaLuna and try to make things better.

  A shudder ran over me when I thought about her. Would she forgive me? Did she have any reason to forgive me? I certainly couldn’t see one. But maybe Mei was right. Maybe I just needed to frame it in the right way.

  Of course, I figured I could also just tell her I loved her. But I didn’t want to do that until I knew for sure that I did.

  Hey, I’m not a complete asshole.

  Taio grunted at me and squinted at my tiny laptop screen. “And just how are you going to do that with this hunk of junk?” he sneered.

  That little insult brought my attention back to the task at hand. “You’re just going to have to wait and see,” I told him with a haughty little grin on my face.

  I suppose I could have just told him that I was going to do a simple database lookup in the stolen data for Bao Xiang so I could find the latest information on him, but in that moment, I really didn’t want to give Taio any more than I had to. Let him think I pulled Bao’s whereabouts out of a magic hole in the wall if he wanted to. It couldn’t be any worse than what he thought of me now.

  My laptop whirred again, and I clicked around a bit to setup the query and let it go. You didn’t need lots of RAM or CPU power to run a database lookup, but it sure made things faster. As it was, it was going to take a minute.

  Taio leaned over my shoulder, planting his hand on the wall and breathing down on my neck as he peered at the little words on my screen. “So this can find people, huh?”

  I shrugged. “If you tell it where to look, it can.”

  “Huh.” He paused for a moment. “Cool.”

  Cool? Where had Taio even learned that word? There were so many things I wanted to ask in that moment, but there were more pressing matters.

  My laptop stopped whirring. The search had finished its job.

  I stared down at an empty, blinking cursor next to the words “0 results found.”

  “What the heck?”

  Taio frowned. “What do you mean, no results found? I thought you had this all under control?”

  Humph. So he could read the query results, too. That wasn’t going to help anything.

  “Relax, I probably just typed the words in wrong or something,” I assured him.

  But I hadn’t. I was positive I’d searched for the right thing. Just to be completely sure, I flipped the first and last names and searched for Xiang Bao instead.

  “Come on, come on,” I chanted as the computer whirred to life once more, smacking the machine on the side a few times for good measure.

  My impatience was not rewarded. Once more, the “0 results found” message appeared, mocking me.

  “Humph. Some tech wizard you are,” my brother muttered. He backed away and sat on the nearby couch, then seemed to regret it and got back up.

  “Look, I’m not sure what’s going on, either, but I’m sure there’s a valid reason for this,” I told him. I furiously typed more searches into the computer, looking for anything related to Bao instead of just an employee record. “I’ll find him if he’s in here.”

  “Maybe he got fired and didn’t want to tell me?” Taio offered.

  I shook my head and kept staring at the screen. More and more “0 results” messages were lighting up on the screen.

  “Nah, even if he was an ex-employee, they’d still have some sort of record of him in here. For legal purposes, they have to keep a record of everyone that’s ever worked there.”

  I paused for a moment as another thought struck me. “Are you positive he was working for Delta Fox? Maybe it was another firm, or he was working as a contractor?”

  “Hmm,” Taio muttered. “No, it was Delta Fox. I saw his badge in the photos and everything. I’m positive it was them.”

  “Okay, bro, if you say so.” I shot him a dirty look. “You’re all a bunch of crazies if you ask me,” I added under my breath. Taio’s face contorted into an angry frown as he no doubt heard the words, but I waved him off before he could say anything further. “Just let the machine do its job, okay? I’m not done yet.”

  “Fine,” Taio growled. “But once you’ve found my son, I will go to him myself. Do I make myself clear?”

  “Yeah, yeah,” I uttered, waving him away again. In spite of my resolve, I pushed him a little. I wasn’t sure why, but it felt like the right thing to do. “I got it. Big overprotective daddy must go save his wittle kiddy from the big bad evil corporation.”

  The skin on Taio’s face grew so taut I thought it was going to tear. He opened his mouth so big I thought I could fit a ship in there to yell at me further, but I interrupted him before he could speak.

  “Wait!” I cried.

  I watched as Taio slowly deflated. After a moment, he smoothed himself and nodded at me. “What is it, little brother? Did you find Bao?”

  “Sort of.”

  To be honest, what the screen was telling me was at best a long shot. But it was better than nothing. And nothing was what we had to go on up until now.

  “Sort of?” Taio’s left brow raised and he took a couple steps closer to me, but I blocked the screen with my body as best I could to deny him the joy of reading the answer for himself. Finally, he stood up straight and crossed his arms. “How so?”

  A wry smile crossed my lips. “Well, if you’re willing to h
ang around your little brother for a few more minutes, you just might find out.”

  I rapped on the apartment door a few times. Apartment 6B. From the outset, it appeared to be nothing special, just another door in a rather large apartment complex.

  This particular complex was near the Seattle waterfront, though, and I imagined even from the sixth floor, you could get a pretty good view of the ocean if you were on the right side of the building. Which this apartment was.

  Part of me wondered if every Delta Fox IT guy made the kind of money it must take to secure a place like this, or if there was something special about the guy we were coming to visit that meant he could afford it when the others couldn’t. Not that there’d been much special about him in the personnel file I’d pilfered. Just a half-mention of the guy’s name, age, and legal address. That was it.

  Of course, that was kind of expected. Delta Fox wouldn’t want to keep mountains of private details of its employees in a personnel file—legal ramifications and all that. I’d kind of hoped they’d have more details, but I wasn’t shocked when they didn’t.

  At any rate, one thing was very clear. I was in the wrong profession. Free video games and a nice apartment? Now that was the life.

  I knocked on the door again, slightly impatiently this time. It was evening hours, so there was a decent chance the guy would be home from work. Having dinner, perhaps, but home.

  “Let’s just go, Damian,” Taio said with a half groan. I spared him a glance, and he was eyeing the hallway nervously like the shadows were going to jump out and attack him or something. “We shouldn’t be bothering rank and file employees like this.”

  I put my hands on my hips for good measure. “Tch. And how do you intend to find out about Bao’s whereabouts, then?”

  Taio eyed the hallway behind him again for a moment, then turned to face me and sighed. “Fine. But it doesn’t look like he’s home, so maybe we can call and make an appointment for later.”