Kris Longknife: Furious

by Mike Shepherd

  “Calm down, Penny,” Kris said, with pleading in her voice. “We need this job. Jack, you, me. We really need the pay.”

  The captain really liked that comeback.

  “Go change. Your shift starts in ten minutes, and I still got to get you there.”

  Kris and company rushed off to change. As expected, there were cameras in the four corners of the ladies’ locker room. Kris gave one of them a smile. In her present disguise, any guy watching likely barfed up his lunch.

  The uniform was tight where Kris normally didn’t have anything, but with the layers of disguise, she no longer could pass for a boy. Since she didn’t intend to spend a lot of time in it, she met her problem with a shrug. Their guns and several plastic flash bangs stayed comfortably nestled in both women’s bags, right under the feminine necessities that provided cover.

  Unknown until the necessary moment, said feminine necessities were explosives with fuses.

  Kris came out of the changing room looking as womanly as she could, struggling to make her uniform fit decently. That drew a grin from the captain. “Go through the metal detector and put your bags through the bomb sniffer.”

  Kris did as ordered, and no alarms went off. She had to wonder how Grampa Al managed to stay so secure. It couldn’t be this security team.

  The captain loaded all three of them into an oversize golf cart; Jack managed to take the front seat next to their putative boss. The ride was short. As foretold, their job was at the loading dock in the back of the tower. Here they were introduced to a hard case with a shaved head who wore corporal stripes.

  “More fresh meat for you, Hanson,” the captain announced. “Don’t eat them all up tonight. Save some for tomorrow,” drew a laugh from the two with rank.

  Kris tried to look scared while considering just how many ways she could lay the two of them out flat on their backs while they wondered what happened. Sadly, the situation didn’t allow for that, nor could she even permit herself a tiny smile of enjoyment at the thought.

  The corporal got right to work messing with Kris’s life. A trash truck was just pulling away from a dock. Kris got the job of crawling under it to make sure no one was riding out. The only good thing about the assignment was that they had a board on wheels so Kris could just lie on her back and look up at the smelly and oily underside of the truck. No one lurked there, and the very basic electronic sensor Kris was given reported no activity from any bugs.

  Nelly made sure of that.

  THOUGH I DIDN’T HAVE TO, KRIS. THAT TRUCK IS A DEAD ZONE.

  JUST BE GLAD YOU CAN’T SMELL, GIRL.

  Jack offered Kris a hand up, but the corporal told her to stay down. A second truck was already headed their way. This one was full of shredded paper and plastic flimsies. It was just as filthy underneath but less smelly. Kris did her job.

  And did it again when a truck that had brought in office equipment came through. It seemed like everything was leaving at that time of night.

  That truck offered something different. Kris found an electronic bug nestled in among the four back-tire wells. That brought a visit from the captain and a team of bug hunters. They turned up two more bugs stuck inside the back of the van.

  The driver and van got hustled away for further investigation, and the corporal got an attaboy and talk of a cash award. Kris and her crew, who had found the initial lead, got not even a nod.

  “I guess that’s what it’s like to work around here,” Penny whispered.

  That got her a scowl from the corporal, and further conversation wilted. The garbage truck brought the Dumpster back, and Kris got to go over its underside again. The corporal insisted she do it twice. By the time Jack helped her to her feet, even he admitted she’d taken on a certain air.

  By now it was eleven, and traffic seemed to vanish as if it had been turned off at a switch. The corporal retreated to the loading dock and settled down behind a tiny desk. He pulled out a girly magazine and began to flip through it. Every once in a while, he’d glance up at Kris or Penny and shake his head.

  STAY IN PLACE FOR THE NEXT TEN MINUTES, I’M MAKING A FILM LOOP, Nelly told Kris.

  The three of them stood where they were below the loading dock. Kris shook her arms, stomped her feet, and looked miserable as the cool of the night proved their thin uniforms unsuited for outside work. The others did the same.

  They said not a word.

  I’VE GOT TEN MINUTES RECORDED. THE MONITOR DOESN’T HAVE ANY STORAGE ABILITY, BUT I’VE PLANTED A NANO IN IT. YOU ARE OFF THE SECURITY NET, Nelly announced.

  “Where’s the nearest ladies’ room?” Penny asked.

  “You peed before coming on shift,” the corporal growled without looking up. “You can pee when you’re off shift. The company don’t pay you to pee.”

  “It also don’t want blood on its nice new uniforms,” Penny said.

  The corporal looked up at that one.

  Jack gave the guy one of those male-bonding looks and headed up the steps for a whispered consultation with the corporal. As Jack bent over, his hand dug his automatic out of all the foam flab at his butt.

  The weapon came around. There were two soft reports, and the corporal was asleep before his head hit the desk.

  Jack balled the guy up beneath the desk as Kris and Penny took the steps up to the loading dock two at a time.

  Jack handed Kris the corporal’s comm device. The chatter on it was very much normal. As Kris pocketed it, she smiled at her friends. “Let’s go visit Grampa Al.”

  * * *

  Senior Chief Agent in Charge Foile stared across the table at the legendary General Trouble. They’d been staring at each other for the last fifteen minutes. Fifteen minutes!

  Foile had actually timed it.

  Most normal people faced with dead silence felt com-pelled to fill it. Obviously, the general did not fall into the subset of normal people. Foile finally pursed his lips. He’d have to try another tack.

  “Can you help me understand this situation we’re in?” he said, leaving the question as open as he could. Open in scope and almost desperate in its begging.

  The general raised an eyebrow but said nothing.

  “Your grandson, Billy Longknife, asked me to find his daughter before she gets herself, and a whole lot of other people, suddenly dead.”

  That drew no answer.

  “Doesn’t that worry you? My agent, Leslie Chu, is a fan of your great-granddaughter. She tells me that you helped sober Kristine up when she was just a kid. Cleaned up her act and got her headed into most everything she’s done.”

  That got a smile from the old general. What man can stay stolid as a fence post when his kid is being praised?

  “I think when the record is finally told, you’ll find that Kris never did anything she didn’t want or intended to do,” the man said.

  “But her father really thinks she’s going to get herself killed this time. That’s the only reason I’m chasing after her.” Even Foile heard the pleading in his voice.

  He’d never pleaded during an interrogation before.

  The old man shook his head. “A lot of folks have tried to kill her. A lot of them are dead, and she’s still breathing.”

  “I think this time it might be different.”

  The troublemaker nodded at that. “You might be right.”

  Foile waited for him to go on. When he didn’t, he found himself saying, “Do you want her to get killed?”

  The look on the general’s face could have killed Foile. Very likely it had killed Iteeche and Unity thugs. Foile swallowed. “Won’t you help me at all?”

  “I’d like a glass of water,” was all the general said.

  As Foile stood up to get him one, his commlink came alive.

  “Sir,” said Leslie, “there’s been a security breach at Longknife Towers. We’re not sure what’s going on, but they hired three new security guards tonight. A check of their personal files has come back negative, and the fingerprints that were taken have disappeared
from the computer net. I have no idea who they hired, but I’ll bet my pension that we’ve found my princess and her two sidekicks.”

  Foile turned back to the general.

  He was smiling.

  Foile left his hat on the table as he raced for the door.

  33

  Kris trotted into the large but very empty receiving bay. There were several service elevators, but taking one of them would be a quick way to end the visit in handcuffs. She spotted the door that led down to the basement and took it.

  Five floors down, below parking, below most signs of human interest, they paused outside a door that proclaimed NO ADMITTANCE.

  “Nelly, send a nano in.”

  She did, and Kris quickly got a picture of a dirty room filled with large and noisy machinery. A lone guard in a brown uniform carefully made his way among the pieces of whirling equipment. He’d just passed the door that Kris stood behind.

  “Where are the cameras?” Kris asked.

  “There aren’t any,” Nelly answered.

  “So much for them watching our every move,” Jack said.

  “I’m shocked. Shocked, I tell you, that they’d lie to us the first day on the job,” Penny said to no one in particular.

  “Penny,” Kris said, and the security specialist quickly unlocked the door.

  Kris took a quick step through and put two sleepy darts in the guard’s back. He crumbled at the knees and went down easy.

  Once in the support area, Kris glanced around the room. “Here’s the central electrical power, water, sewer, and cooling, everything you need to run this place.”

  “And only one guard with no cameras?” Jack finished.

  “I’ve seen tighter security around a cookie jar,” Penny said.

  “Is Grampa Al kidding himself?” Kris asked.

  “Or is he just too cheap to pay for what he needs?” Jack said.

  “I wouldn’t let our guard down,” Penny said.

  “Nelly, drop some nanos in the machinery. You can never tell when we might want to turn off the lights or flush all the toilets.”

  “You heard the woman, kids, let’s take over this place.”

  “Mom, do we get to blow anything up?” Sal asked from Jack’s neck.

  “No, kids. We do this elegantly,” Nelly said, to Kris’s great relief.

  While the computers did their thing, Kris led her team over to the elevator pits. Jack had opened a small door that led into the shaft. As promised, there were rungs along the wall leading up. The three of them began to climb. The fit between the wall and the closest elevator car was close, what with the extra beam Kris was packing, but all three made their way up the shaft.

  The elevators in Longknife Tower were divided into four groups. The first took you from the first to no higher than the 50 floor, where you had to get off . . . under the eyes of guards . . . get your security badge checked . . . and switch to a bank that could take you to floors between fifty and one hundred.

  If you wanted to go higher than that, you went through another scan, this time of palm prints and retina, and got to ride up to the 150 floor. Of that checkpoint, all the schematic that Grampa Trouble’s friend had gotten ahold of only said RESTRICTED AREA.

  Since Kris didn’t intend to pass through any of those security checkpoints, she really didn’t care what they were.

  They settled on the top of the elevator car just as Nelly said, “I’ve got control of the car’s computer. It’s a tiny thing and easy to confuse. Hold on.”

  And they began to rise. It was kind of scary as the wind whistled by—and the ceiling of the shaft got closer, but Nelly stopped them on the 49 floor. They switched back to the ladder rungs just as the elevator door opened, and two workers got in.

  “I hate it when I have to work this late,” a woman’s voice said.

  “I’ve got a nine o’clock meeting tomorrow. You want to leave me standing in front of all the big boys, telling them I’ll have the report by noon?” said a man.

  “Will you at least get me invited to the meeting?”

  “I’ll see what I can arrange,” didn’t have much power behind it.

  As the elevator dropped away from them with this private bit of human story, Kris found a hatch, opened it, and led her team onto the 50 floor.

  They were in a service area. Again, no cameras. Maybe the locked door explained that bit of savings. Penny made short work of the lock.

  “There’s a camera covering the hall,” Nelly said. “Give me a minute to take care of it. Catch your breath. You’ll hit the stairs next.”

  Kris found herself glad for the workouts she’d been getting. Then found the words taking on a double meaning, and had to swallow a giggle.

  Giggle!

  Longknifes didn’t giggle.

  Well, maybe Longknifes in love found they could do a lot of things that normal people did.

  Get your head back in the game, Kris growled at herself just as Nelly announced. “I’ve captured control of the cameras between here and the stairwell. I’ve ordered them to look away for two minutes. Move quickly, the guards have a problem with a flooding ladies’ room.”

  Kris led, Jack right behind her. Penny walked backward, her automatic out but held low. The sound of running water and male curses hurried them along.

  “How did you manage that?” Jack whispered.

  “I’m the Magnificent Nelly. I’ll never tell.”

  “She bragged to us,” Sal said softly from around Jack’s neck. “Thanks, Mom. Next time, I get to do it.”

  They made the stairwell with no problem. The lock there fell to Penny’s and Mimzy’s work. The door opened, and the threatened alarm did not go off. There were cameras in the stairwell, but Nelly needed less than a minute to seed them all with a snapshot of nothing, and off they went.

  Fifty flights of stairs was going to take some time. Kris hated to lose that time. Still, so far their intrusion was unnoticed. She listened in on the corporal’s comm device. No one had called him to warn him of incoming traffic. Kris’s legs began to complain of the workout, but at least the worst had not started.

  Stairs went by, flight after flight. It was almost boring.

  Then everything changed!

  Lights started flashing. Alarms beeped, rang, and made all sorts of racket.

  * * *

  Senior Chief Agent in Charge Foile and Agent Rick Sanchez arrived only a minute behind agents Leslie Chu and Mahomet Debot. What they found was a mass of confusion, rapidly going in circles and accomplishing nothing.

  “Are you sure about those fingerprints?” a man with captain’s rank on his collar asked Leslie. “My girl took them, and she’s real good about fingerprints. They never come back smudged or anything.”

  “Sir,” Leslie said, and it did not sound respectful in any way, “I have copies of the prints. They’re not smudged. The forms are empty. Empty for all three.”

  “Diedre, you did take their prints, didn’t you?”

  “I did, sir. I saw them in the computer. They’re there. Just look.”

  So everyone did, and there certainly were fingerprints in that computer. Somehow, they had stayed there and not been sent from that computer out for processing. And when Diedre sent them again, the computer assured them they were sent. Again, nothing arrived at the central fingerprint database for check.

  “That can’t happen,” the captain insisted.

  “Nelly’s at the bottom of this one,” Leslie said with a wide Girls Rule grin.

  “Have you advised Security Central at the Tower that you have a breach?” Foile asked.

  “Until a second ago, all we had was this little girl’s claim that we had a problem. I didn’t have any trouble. No, I have not called Central.”

  Foile glanced around. On a desk, he spotted a red phone with SECURITY CENTRAL stenciled on it. He picked it up and got an immediate, “Yes.”

  “This is Senior Chief Agent in Charge Foile of the Wardhaven Bureau of Investigation. Your outer security peri
meter has been breached by a three-person team headed by Princess Kristine Longknife. You may want to go to an alert.”

  Before he finished his suggestion, an alarm started beeping, and a red light began flashing, both on the phone and from a device above both doors.

  “Now you gone and done it,” the captain muttered.

  “Yes, I have,” Foile said, then turned back to the phone. “I have a team of four investigators. May I be admitted to Security Central?”

  “I’ll have to check with my supervisor,” came the response, and the phone went dead.

  Foile scowled at the phone. “I think we’re going to have a jurisdiction problem,” he muttered softly to his team.

  34

  “Well, that tears it,” Penny said from her place last in line.

  “That’s a general alarm, throughout the building,” Nelly added. “I don’t think they know where we are.”

  “Let’s keep it that way. Nelly, release more scouts. If there are nanos in the stairwell, we need to get them under our control.”

  “I haven’t identified any nanos yet. Your grandfather is really cheap.”

  “Nelly, is this commlink I’m carrying sending out a locator signal?”

  “It is, Kris. Just a second. Okay, I have a nano cutting out the signal, and I’m sending a copycat signal down the stairwell. If they interrogate that puppy, they’ll think we’re way below where we are. Maybe more, depending on how long they take to ask it anything.”

  “Good, Nelly.”

  There had been no interruption at stair climbing as Nelly set about messing with the search for them.

  “Kris, any thoughts about going to Plan B?” Jack asked.

  “You tired of climbing?”

  “I’d like to get to the two hundredth floor a whole lot quicker,” was all he said.

  “I second the idea,” Penny said. She didn’t sound winded, but she was slowing down. All of them were.

  The 75 floor gave Kris her option for Plan B. While the elevators for people in suits only went fifty floors between security checkpoints, the service elevator for dirty and messy things had only one transfer point between the ground and the top floor. It was on the 75.