Phantom Wheel

by Tracy Deebs

  “They’re offline, just like in San Fran, so we won’t know until we know. But we figured it could take a while. There’s a lot to check.”

  “I know. I’m just…”

  “Impatient?” he says with a smile.

  “Worried. There’s too much that can go wrong here, and Owen looks terrible.”

  “He’ll be fine,” Mad Max assures me, but I’ve learned a thing or two about him in the last few days, and I know he’s as concerned about the Lone Ranger as I am. He’s just trying to be reassuring.

  “So, where exactly are you taking us?” Silver Spoon asks as we continue to wind our way down one hallway after another.

  “Mr. Olsen wants to speak with you,” one of the guards says. “We’re taking you to him.”

  “Yeah, well, we want to speak with him too,” Snow White pipes up, even as she reaches for my hand and gives it a little squeeze. It’s all good, her look says. This is what we expected to happen.

  And it is. I know it is. It’s just I’m scared in a way I wasn’t the last time we did this. Because then I didn’t have anything to lose except a stupid college scholarship. Now, suddenly, I have five people that I really, truly care about, and the idea of anything happening to one of them tonight… it honestly terrifies me more than the thought of something happening to me.

  It’s a weird feeling, but I’m way more scared for them than I am for myself. It’s been a long time since I’ve had anyone to care about, and it feels weird. Not bad, just… weird.

  “Yeah,” Buffy chimes in, interrupting my thoughts. “We’ve been wanting to meet Mr. Olsen for a long time.”

  The guards exchange looks that are about as far from reassuring as they can get. “Well then, tonight is your lucky night.”

  “Where are we going?” the Lone Ranger echoes Silver Spoon. The words kind of run together, though, and I glance at him, panicked. He’s the best coder we’ve got, especially on the fly. What happens if he’s too sick to fix any problems that come up?

  “To Mr. Olsen’s office.”

  My heart skips a beat at that. We’ve been hoping for a chance at the floor his office is on—and the servers housed there. We just never thought Olsen would be stupid enough to give it to us.

  “Anything yet?” I mumble to Mad Max, who is once again surreptitiously checking his phone.

  “Nope.”

  “Do you think we could get the code into the servers? It’d be a lot faster—”

  “I think right now the only thing we can do is follow along to wherever they’re taking us. I’m pretty sure anything else will get us killed.”

  After an elevator ride and another long walk down a deserted hall, we end up in front of beveled-glass double doors.

  “Roderick Olsen’s office, I presume?” Buffy asks, all innocent looking.

  “Mr. Olsen’s office,” one of the guards stresses. Obviously Rod likes to stand on ceremony around here. Not that that’s exactly a surprise or anything…

  The doors fly open, and then he’s standing there, Roderick Olsen himself. Or Lex Luthor, as I like to call him.

  “Welcome,” he says, voice warm and eyes absolutely frigid. “I’m so glad you could make the party tonight.”

  “So glad you invited us,” Silver Spoon answers smoothly.

  Lex Luthor reaches out to shake his hand, and Silver Spoon obliges him. A small pissing contest ensues, one that I’m pretty sure Silver Spoon wins, judging by the way Lex is shaking out his hand.

  He gestures for us to sit down on the artfully arranged sofas that take up the front half of his office, and we do, warily. There’s a part of me that expects him to just shoot us all and be done with it. Sure, he’d have six bodies to deal with, but judging by the look of his security force, I’m pretty sure we wouldn’t be the first dead people they’ve had to deal with.

  “So, it seems you’ve all been having quite a little adventure,” Lex says after we’re all seated. “At my company’s expense.”

  “To be fair, if you hadn’t fought us, it wouldn’t have cost you anything,” the Lone Ranger pipes up. Because of course he does. The boy doesn’t know when to keep his mouth shut, and he never will.

  “Yes, well, no one asked you to come barging onto my property and wreak the kind of havoc you did.”

  “Yes, well,” Snow White says, mimicking his very proper voice and speech patterns. “No one asked you to set up an elaborate lie to recruit us and then trick us into creating a virus for you. But that’s what you did. What happened after is on you.”

  Lex Luthor’s eyes narrow, and I can’t tell if it’s because he doesn’t like a girl talking back to him or if he doesn’t like anyone to do it. Probably a little of both. Either way, the anger in his eyes is both terrifying and strangely satisfying. He deserves every ounce of discomfort we can cause him.

  “It occurs to me that you’re right. The way we did things was dishonest, and I’m hoping to rectify that tonight.”

  “By telling us your evil plan?” Mad Max scoffs. “Don’t worry, we already know it.”

  “I never give away my plans, evil or otherwise.” Lex Luthor leans back in his chair and crosses his legs, as he gestures at his security guards.

  Seconds later, one with a scar steps forward and puts a briefcase on the coffee table between us. “What I do give away, however, is my money. When I feel it is earned, and you six definitely earned it.”

  He glances at the Lone Ranger. “Well, five of you did, but I’m willing to be generous if it means letting bygones be bygones.”

  He nods, and the guy with the scar opens the briefcase. In it are stacks and stacks of hundred-dollar bills—not unlike the ones Silver Spoon handed out the other day.

  And while a few weeks ago I might have been tempted by the fact that my college education would be paid for if I just took the money and shut up, now I can’t even conceive of it. I don’t have to look at the others’ faces to know that neither can they.

  “You don’t really think we’re going to take that, do you?” Buffy asks.

  “I do think you’re going to take it,” he answers her. “Because if you don’t, the six of you are going to be very, very sorry.”

  “Yes, but how do you know we won’t just agree that we’re all good now and then screw you over anyway?” Mad Max asks.

  I didn’t think it was possible, but Lex Luthor’s eyes turn even more glacial. “I wouldn’t recommend that.”

  “Yeah, well, I wouldn’t recommend you upload Phantom Wheel into those kiosks, but something tells me you aren’t any more predisposed to listen than I am,” Snow White says, and it’s obvious that there’s something about her talking back to him that pisses him off more than the rest of us.

  The guy’s a total misogynist.

  “I wish you hadn’t said that,” Lex Luthor tells her.

  “Oh, do you now? Too bad I don’t give a damn what you wish,” she answers. “Let me tell you what’s going to happen here—”

  “I know exactly what’s going to happen here,” he says. He reaches across the table and slaps her across the face.

  The Lone Ranger, Mad Max, and Silver Spoon explode from their spots on the couch, but Olsen’s security forces are right there to take them back down again. I watch in horror as fists plow into their stomachs.

  “You should have taken the money,” Olsen says as he steps away. “Everything would have been so much neater if you had.”

  “You never intended to give us the money,” I tell him as he walks toward the door.

  “You’ll never know now, will you?” He casts a warning glance at the guards. “Keep them here until after the gala. Then get rid of them. Quietly.”

  “You can’t do this!” Mad Max shouts as he runs straight for him. He plows his shoulder into Lex Luthor’s stomach and sends the guy careening back against the wall.

  Lex falls to the floor, and then Mad Max is on him, hitting him in the chest and stomach and anywhere else he can reach.

  We’re all in shock—e
ven the security guards—that mild-mannered Seth is the one who’s snapped. Which is why it takes the five of us a few seconds to react. Once it does register, though, we rush them en masse, trying to help him.

  But the guards get to him first, two pulling him off Lex Luthor and then punching him over and over while the others hold us back. I’m furious, terrified, with tears pouring down my face, as I watch them beat Seth.

  Beside me, it takes two guards to hold Silver Spoon back and three to hold the Lone Ranger down, despite his wounds. Snow White is swearing like a sailor, scratching and smacking at the guard holding her while Buffy screams the place down.

  I’m as desperate to get to Seth as the rest of them, and I bring my high heel down right on the foot of the guy holding me. At the same time I jerk my head back and head butt him in the mouth. He curses, but he doesn’t let go. Instead, he tightens his arms around me, squeezing so hard I can barely breathe.

  And the guards go on beating Seth.

  “Enough,” Olsen finally says, after he’s straightened his tuxedo jacket and his bow tie. “That’s enough for the moment. We don’t want to attract any more attention than necessary right now.” He moves toward the door, then glances back at Seth, who’s crumpled in a ball on the ground. “Tonight, when the gala is done and Phantom Wheel, as you like to call it, has been uploaded, you’re going to regret what you just did. More than you can ever imagine.”

  And then he’s gone, sweeping out of his office as breezily as he let us in and ordering his guards: “Lock them in. Three of you stay behind to guard the doors and make sure they don’t escape. The rest of you, with me.”

  The guards let us go, and I rush to Seth, dropping to my knees beside him as the doors slam shut. The six of us are alone again.

  “What the hell, Seth?” I cry as I run my hands over his face, checking for injuries. His nose is bleeding—I’m pretty sure it’s broken—and one of his eyes will definitely be swollen shut soon. “Why would you do that?”

  “What? I jump a guy and now I’m Seth?” he jokes, his voice more than a little strained. “What happened to Mad Max?”

  “Right now you’re Seth,” I answer, because I don’t know what to say. Don’t know how to say that I can’t use a nickname to keep him—to keep any of them—at a distance. Not now, when Seth, my friend, is bleeding right in front of me.

  “Let me look at him,” Owen says. “I’ve seen a lot of broken bones in football.”

  “I don’t think anything’s broken,” Seth says as he sits up gingerly. “Well, maybe my nose,” he continues as blood gushes from his nostrils.

  “Here, use this,” Alika says, grabbing what looks to be a silk shirt out of Olsen’s closet and ripping a sleeve off.

  “Tilt your head forward a little bit and pinch your nose here,” Owen says, placing Seth’s fingers on the soft part of his nose. Owen’s voice and eyes are clear for the first time in the last hour. Amazing what adrenaline can do for you. “It’ll help stop the bleeding.”

  “In a minute,” Seth says, as he pulls his hand away to reach into his pocket.

  “Now!” Issa orders him. “You have to let us help you.”

  “Why would you do that?” Alika asks. “Why would you attack him when all his guards were here? It doesn’t make any sense!”

  “Because Owen’s code came through.”

  “What?” Ezra, who has been pacing since the guards left, is suddenly still. “What do you mean?”

  “I mean,” he says as he pulls out a phone I don’t recognize and holds it up, “the code hit on the device with Phantom Wheel loaded on it, the device that will deliver the virus to the kiosks. Olsen’s phone.”

  “That’s brilliant,” Owen says, in awe.

  “You attacked him so you could get his phone?” I ask. I’m not a guy, so I’m not nearly as impressed right now as Owen seems to be.

  “Can you think of any other way I could have gotten it? I couldn’t just casually walk up to him and stick my hand in his jacket.”

  “Give it to me,” Alika says, voice low and urgent. “We need to upload the code now, before he realizes it’s missing.”

  But it only takes a few tries for her to start cursing. “It’s not uploading. They must have blocked our devices from the network when they left us in here.”

  “No wonder he didn’t try to take them,” Owen mutters. “He’s stupid enough to think we can’t work around this BS. Give me a minute to find the local—”

  “Here, try this.” I pull a USB cable from my backpack and hold it out to her. Seconds later, she’s done transferring the payload via USB cable from her tablet to Olsen’s state-of-the-art Jacento phone. “It’s faster than trying to hack something.”

  “Now, how do we get it back to him?” Issa asks.

  “Like this.” Ezra grabs it from her and takes it over toward the door, where Seth tackled Olsen. He crouches down, half shoving it under a chair so only a little bit peeks out. “If we’re lucky, they’ll think we didn’t see it.”

  “It doesn’t matter,” Alika tells him. “Even if he checks it, he won’t see the payload. I wrote it so it would do the same thing Phantom Wheel does, hide in another app until we need it.”

  “You are…” Owen starts, then stops, shaking his head.

  “I am…?” she asks, brows raised.

  He doesn’t answer. Instead, he wraps a hand around the back of her neck and pulls her against him. And then he plants a kiss on her that has all of us clearing our throats and looking anywhere but at them.

  “Okay, okay, okay,” Issa says after several long, excruciating seconds. “I hate to break this up, but I’m pretty sure we need to start thinking about how we’re going to get out of this—hopefully without ending up in the middle of another shoot-out.”

  “I like that plan,” Seth tells her. “If I never get shot at again in my life, it’ll be too soon.”

  “Right?” Ezra agrees.

  “You guys weren’t even shot,” Owen complains as he finally tears his lips away from Alika’s.

  “Not our fault we’re better at ducking and weaving,” she tells him, a wicked gleam in her eyes.

  “Keep talking and I won’t tell you my idea,” he threatens.

  “And what idea is that exactly?” I demand.

  He starts to answer, but cuts off when two security guards throw the doors open. “Stay right there,” they warn as they start scouring the floor. Seconds later, they find Olsen’s phone where Ezra planted it. After grabbing it, they storm out as quickly as they came in.

  I wait a few moments to make sure they’re really gone, then turn back to Owen. “Now, what exactly is your plan and how fast can we put it into action?”

  35

  Owen

  (1nf1n173 5h4d3)

  “For the record,” Alika says as she stares at the rope I’ve just tied onto one of the columns in the middle of Olsen’s office, “this is not a plan. It’s suicide.”

  “It’s a plan,” I tell her. “And pretty much the only one we’ve got at this point. Unless you’d rather take your chances with the armed security guards.”

  “I’d rather take my chances with the security guards,” Seth volunteers, eyes wide and Adam’s apple bobbing in his throat. “I mean, I know you’re a giant football player and everything, but hasn’t anyone told you that hackers aren’t athletic?”

  “I’m not asking you to throw a touchdown pass,” I tell him with a roll of my eyes. “I’m just asking you to climb down a rope.”

  “Yeah, but what you don’t get is that I’ve got as much chance of throwing that pass as I do of not falling off that rope,” he answers. “And that’s when I haven’t just had the crap beat out of me.”

  I look at the others, hoping for some support. But Issa and Alika are both nodding like Seth is speaking the biggest truth they’ve ever heard. Harper looks skeptical, but at least she’s listening, and Ezra is Ezra, so of course he’s not worried about a little rope climbing. Hell, he probably thinks he can just jum
p down from the third floor and land on his freaking feet.

  “Do we even know that this is a sound plan?” Seth continues. “I mean, you are delirious with fever right now.”

  “I was lucid enough to think to grab this rope off one of the guards! We’re using it!”

  “And have you forgotten that you just got shot?” Alika asks. “How are you supposed to climb down? There’s no way that arm will hold you.”

  “I can do it one handed. It’s not a big deal.”

  Seth throws up his hands. “Of course you can.”

  “Look, we’ve only got a short window of time here. Eventually they’re going to come back for us, and I don’t want to be here when they do.”

  The three of them just continue to stare at me with arms crossed.

  “Look, I’ll even go first if you want me to,” I tell them. “That way if you fall halfway down, I can catch you.”

  “With what, your one good arm?” Issa asks, incredulously. “And your fever?”

  She’s got a good point, especially since my arm has gone from hurting to being on freaking fire. But that doesn’t matter now. Nothing does but getting them down that damn rope.

  “I’ll go first,” Ezra offers. “I’m a good catch, and my arms are both fine. Okay?”

  They still don’t look impressed.

  “Come on, guys,” Harper says. “He’s right. We’re running out of time, and this is our best bet.”

  “It’s your best bet. You’re almost as athletic as these two are,” Alika grumbles under her breath, but eventually she nods. “But fine, let’s just get it done.” She glares at me. “If I end up hanging myself on this thing, I’m coming back to haunt you. Understand?”

  I grin and waggle my brows at her. “I look forward to it.”

  She just rolls her eyes. “I think you’ve got haunt confused with provide sexual favors. That’s not what I was going for.”

  “A guy can dream, can’t he?”

  “By the time I’m done with you, all you’ll have is nightmares,” she answers even as she starts to stretch out her arms and shoulders like she’s planning on doing the hundred-meter butterfly.