by James Wake
“Aha,” she said, sitting on the edge of the vent opening. “Elevator shaft.”
“I told you it would be a fun surprise.”
Nadia could barely make out a ladder—on the other side of the shaft, blocked by cables and steel beams. The elevator car hung many floors above her, the counterweight a dozen feet below.
“Any ideas?” Nadia asked, rubbing her hand on the wall of the shaft. Smooth metal, nothing to grip.
The drone flitted to and fro in the open air of the shaft. “Can you jump down to the bottom?”
At least two dozen feet down, easy. Nadia pictured taking the landing hard and being trapped at the bottom of the black shaft with a broken leg.
“We really need to work on some form of climbing tools,” she said.
“What if you backtrack? Go left at that intersection?”
Nadia had glanced that way; it looked narrower than the first stretch. The shaft buzzed to life, the counterweight slowly lifting on the cables. Nadia didn’t think, didn’t hesitate for a moment, as she wedged her heels under herself and jumped into open space.
She had expected the counterweight to swing when she landed, but it didn’t even budge. Rising up, her hands wrapped around steel cables inches thick, she watched large numbers painted on the wall over each set of doors, counting up.
“Nicely done,” Tess said.
Nadia said nothing, holding on tightly. Already a dozen floors up, she felt the pressure build in her ears.
“Climbing tools…hmm,” Tess said. “Graphene fiber cord? Maybe some magnets or pads that stick?”
“Hopefully not too much more to carry,” Nadia said. She liked the direction they had taken so far—no tool bigger or heavier than her hand. Or woven into her sweater, although it was hard to picture a coil of rope fitting in there.
“Did you have a plan past this?” Tess said.
“I think it’s been apparent for some time now that I’m improvising.”
The elevator sank past her, a dim box in her vision. The number seventeen flew past as well, and then she stopped, hovering in space a good few feet above the top of the elevator.
“It stopped on the seventeenth floor?” Tess said. “Convenient.”
“Seems like the only floor with anything happening at this hour,” Nadia said, leaning over the edge of the solid block she was perched on. Not too far to jump.
“Don’t,” Tess said.
“How else am I supposed to get in from here?”
“Don’t!”
Nadia did. Her eyes shot wide open the moment she landed, not ready at all for the colossal bang her feet made on the top of the elevator car.
“Was that as loud as it sounded here?” Tess said.
Nadia wasn’t sure. The plugs in her ears were amplifying sound, true, but that had been a truly massive racket. She crouched on top of the elevator, waiting for voices from below, for movement.
Nothing.
Tess breathed a loud sigh. “You are so lucky.”
“Can you see what I’m seeing here?”
Tess’s drone hovered in close to Nadia’s head, scanning the crawl space above the elevator door. It was a dark, tangled web of conduits and vents, crammed in over what looked to be cheap foam ceiling panels.
“Whoa!” Tess said.
“What’s wrong?”
One of the bundles of conduits lit up in Nadia’s vision. “That is an amount of electricity coming in there.” Tess sounded as though she were fanning herself.
“That’s what gets you all hot and bothered? Unusual power requirements?”
“You know it.”
The bundle ran straight down the crawlspace into darkness. It looked odd, different than the rest. Not that Nadia knew anything about power conduits, but still. It was difficult to make out, but one of the cables said, “Warning” something and then “Laser” something.
“What is that?” Tess asked.
“I was about to ask you the same thing.”
“Go to thermal.”
The bundle was struck through with a bright red line, surely hot to the touch.
“Ooh, follow that!”
Nadia reached forward, testing her weight on a ceiling panel with one hand. It felt flimsy, crinkling and sending up a small cloud of dust.
“Er…hang on. I’ll follow that,” Tess said, sending her drone hovering deep into the crawlspace.
Nadia backed out onto the top of the elevator. “And what? I just get cozy here?”
“That sounds smart.”
Nadia muttered some indignant nonsense as she ran her fingers over what looked like a removable panel on top of the elevator. It did indeed move, coming up easily, soft light spilling through the opening.
She shoved her hand through. Nothing but an empty elevator car in the corner of her goggles. When she lowered herself, she did so much more carefully than when she had jumped.
She killed the light amplification. A plain elevator. Not even a console, just old-fashioned numbered buttons.
Nadia pressed the “Open Doors” button.
The door opened instantly. She pressed herself against the side of the elevator, sticking her hand out—empty hallway opening out into a lobby, somewhat dark, only a few of the ceiling lights on. Flickering, like the lights she and Tess had seen from outside the building.
A torrent of angry curse words erupted in her ear.
“What happened?” Nadia said.
“Drone is…er… Hang on. No, drone’s down.”
“Elaborate.”
“It means I clipped a bit of cable, and now the stupid thing has its rotor tangled,” Tess groaned. “Wait, what are you doing?”
Crouched low, Nadia slunk toward the lobby. On one wall, a large sign read, NORTH CENTRAL NEUROTRONICS, while a small, newer-looking sign underneath it read, NOW A HOLDING OF AUKTORIS GLOBAL FUNDS. She crept up to the last corner and peeked out with her wrist camera.
“So your little pet takes one hit and it’s finished? Out of commission?” Nadia whispered, panning her camera around. She saw a waiting area across from a lone desk. Most of the lights were off; the ones that were on blinked seemingly at random.
A high-pitched whine rose on and on from farther inside the building, reverberating through the walls.
“Don’t make fun of my poor little drone. Fast, maneuverable, or strong,” Tess said. “You get two out of three, and I chose fast and maneuverable.”
“Where does competent piloting fit in?” Nadia said, pointing the laser on her wrist at the lobby’s lone security camera.
Tess fried it. “Whatever, I’m still a good shot.”
“I was aiming.”
“You’re welcome.”
Although the desk looked like a receptionist’s, it was cluttered with consoles, clearly used for something else now. Nadia crawled over and curled up underneath it.
“I’d almost finished mapping that hot conduit,” Tess said.
“A pity,” Nadia replied, finding a port under the desk and plugging a transmitter into it. “And here I thought you wouldn’t even need me anymore.”
“Aw, don’t be jealous,” Tess said. “Ooh, connected! Thank you. Gimme a minute.”
Nadia rose enough to peek at the consoles above her. Gibberish was spewed all over them, green console text on a plain black background.
“Do you need any of this?” she asked.
“I’ll have it all in a minute. Huh. Segregated network. Well segregated. Interesting.”
“What does that mean?”
“It means I have no idea what’s going on in the rest of this building. Just the little lab you’re in.”
“May I proceed?” Nadia said, eyeing an inner door to the rest of the lab.
“Big negative.” A camera feed popped up in the corner of her view, looking down on two people walking toward the now-familiar door. One man a
nd one woman, wearing white lab coats.
The door slid open. Nadia once again curled up under the desk, hugged her knees to her chest, and held her breath.
“…hate this shift,” the man said.
“Just four more hours,” said the woman.
“And six more months. You?”
“I might stick with it for a while. Can’t beat the traffic on the way home.”
Nadia couldn’t see them anymore, but their footsteps crashed in her earplugs. They came to a stop in the middle of the lobby.
“Ugh, I hate when it’s running like this,” the woman said. “Those lights give me a headache.”
“Yeah, so creepy. Cafe’s still open right? Come on.”
“Just a sec.”
Smaller, lighter footsteps. Coming closer to the desk.
“Don’t move,” Tess said.
Nadia wanted to roll her eyes, but she held perfectly still. A pair of feet in beat-up sneakers stopped in front of her. Tacky. She was certain Tess had a pair exactly like them.
“Come on. It’s stable,” the man said. “I need caffeine. Let’s go.”
“Yeah,” the woman said. “Yeah, it’s looking good.”
The sneakers left, the hem of her lab coat barely visible as she walked away. A few seconds later, Nadia heard the elevator door close and then nothing but that awful whining from the lab.
“Thank you for not caring about your job, corporate sell-out scientists,” Tess said.
“Shouldn’t that be you in one of those coats?”
“Ha! Sure. And I’ll just bend over for Auktoris while I’m at it.”
“I’m sure your brilliant mind could be doing some kind of good work.”
“Not for them. That’s one reason I left the university labs,” Tess said. “Okay, still combing through directories, but I have the cameras locked down. Place is yours, I think.”
Nadia looked up at the trail of red lingering above the ceiling, the path of the conduit Tess’s drone had been mapping. She followed it through the inner doors, down hallways that branched off here and there. Signs drifted by: materials processing, locker room, prototype build. The red line above her passed all of them, eventually making a turn into what a sign announced was the AP lab.
“Mind doing me a quick favor?” Tess said.
“Well, obviously I’m going to look in there.”
“No, uh…pop that ceiling tile above you.”
Nadia hijacked a trashcan to her side and climbed up, teetering as she pushed the tile out of place.
“There she is,” Tess said as her drone came into view. “Little help?”
Nadia plucked it out of the darkness, yanking a loose bit of cable from between the rotors. The drone spun to life, zipping out of her hand and doing a jaunty twirl in the air.
“Freedom!” Tess said. “Okay, now open that door.”
Another short hallway lay inside, with several doors to the right. Each one had a red line branching off and going to the room beyond.
An open doorway to Nadia’s left showed her a room full of…small red blobs?
She switched thermal off. Clear cages lined the walls, most of them housing a cat, with a few rabbits mixed in here and there. One of the cats was awake and hissing at her, looking feral in the flickering light.
“Eugh,” Tess said. “That sell-out scientist was right. This place is creepy.”
Cringing, Nadia turned to her right—she would not venture to call herself an animal person. The doors on the right side were all heavy steel, with no windows. The sign on the first one, beyond which was the source of that awful metallic whining, read:
AP CHAMBER 01
DO NOT OPEN WHILE IN OPERATION
Securely shut. The next one down the hall hung half open. Tess’s drone sped ahead, disappearing through the crack in the door.
“Oh, come on!” Tess said. “Lost the drone again. Damn it.”
Shaking her head, Nadia crept toward the door.
“Little help? Again?” Tess said.
Nadia poked her head inside. The room was small, dominated by a computer rack with what looked like a bed attached. The high-pitched hum roared in her ears, making the hair on her skin prickle with static.
“What’s that on the bed? Get…” More static crept into her earpieces the moment Nadia stepped inside. “Whoa, are… You…can’t…”
Nadia tapped at her ear, which didn’t improve anything. Something was on the bed, strapped down—a tabby cat, orange and white and shabby, gross like only a stray cat could be. Stiff and unmoving.
She didn’t need thermal vision to tell her it was cold.
Still nothing in her ears. Worrying. Tess’s drone sat on the floor where it had crashed the moment it had crossed the threshold. Nadia scooped it up and stepped back into the hallway.
“Check? Are you there? Voice check, check, check…”
“Yes, I can hear you,” Nadia said, releasing the drone back into the air. No jaunty dance this time. “Everything’s fine.”
“Weird. I lost you the moment you stepped through. Lost visual too, mostly. Real spotty. That room must be shielded somehow. Network isolated too, I’m getting nothing out of there.”
“I see,” Nadia said. “I’ll be right back.”
She stepped back inside, cutting off Tess’s squawking ”Wait!” A monitor was attached to the bed.
Upload complete
Construct stable…………………100%
Subject volatile
Subject exhibiting aggression
Subject euthanized
Nothing else. Attached to the top of the monitor was what looked like a memory drive but unlike any Nadia had seen before.
It was a slim rectangle, glowing with its own light, almost pure white, maybe a touch of blue. She could swear small, symmetrical crystals cascaded inside it, glinting in the flickering lights.
Like a gem. Of course her eyes had been drawn to it. It was gorgeous, brilliant in a way that could defeat even a worn-out hoodie and jeans.
“I’m sure there’s something very interesting on this,” Nadia said, in case Tess could hear her.
More static in her ears. “…That…haven’t…finished…are you?”
Of course it would make a fitting gift for Tess. She reached out—this was what they were here for, after all: information.
One last word made its way through as she laid her fingers on the drive.
“Don’t!”
Nadia pulled it free.
Alarms rang out instantly, making her jump upright. She dashed into the hallway.
“What’s wrong with you?! I said don’t!”
“I couldn’t hear you!” Nadia lied over the harsh whine of sirens filling the entire lab. “What’s going on? I thought you said it was segregated or something?”
“I wasn’t finished scanning! Okay, no… Okay, calm. Focus.”
Nadia sprinted to the door out of the AP lab, expecting it to slide smoothly open for her. She almost ran into it when it didn’t.
“Locked down. Hang on.”
The feed from the lobby door camera lit up: a black-clad guard was pounding on the other side of the door, smashing the small window with the butt of his weapon.
“Yup, I see,” Tess said. “I’m keeping that door locked.”
Nadia checked behind her, past the AP chambers. Dead end. The door in front of her didn’t move a millimeter.
“Any other way out of here?”
“Not really.” The feed with the guard went out, dead and black. “Oh, boy, they know I’m in here. This is getting interesting.”
The door slid open. Nadia jumped out, her eyes following the drone as it zipped down the dark hallway the way she had come. She started to follow it.
“Other way, other way, other way,” Tess said.
“I don’t know where I’m going.”
<
br /> “Hang on.”
The lights were still flickering, casting ghastly moving shadows all around as Nadia switched from crouching run to standing run to all-out sprint.
“Take this left,” Tess said.
She hadn’t even seen there was a left. Nadia slowed down to take it, remembering to breathe. Everything was fine—no guards in sight yet. Tess would guide her out. She just had to—
Another feed lit up in her HUD. It swooped down from the ceiling at an Auktoris Dome, making the man yelp and duck as the device buzzed around his helmet. Another Dome stood right behind him, swinging a submachine gun butt-end first. The feed exploded into blurs and static before it went dead too.
“Err,” Tess said. “Sorry. Thought I could buy you more time than that. Stairwell in ten feet, on your right.”
Nadia slid to a stop near the door. Before she could open it, something prickled her nerves, making the hair on her neck stand up even through the cold sweat. She craned her neck; the plugs in her ears were picking up several pairs of heavy boots stomping on the other side of the door.
“No good,” Nadia said, turning and running deeper into the lab.
“Ah, hmm…not optimal. I just locked the stairwell, though. Should take them a few minutes.”
The end of the hallway opened into a large room full of workbenches and computer banks, not entirely unlike Tess’s area in their home. Small offices lined the sides of it, ending in the sheer glass at the edge of the building.
Another dead end. Voices echoed down the hallway. Nadia bolted through the door to the corner office and slammed it shut behind her. The beautiful memory drive was still in her hand. Looking around the room she’d just trapped herself in, she slipped it into one of her many pockets.
Next to the door, a display case housed awards of some kind. It looked sufficiently heavy. Nadia took deep breaths, heaving and pulling, but the thing barely moved. She darted to the other side, braced her back against the wall, and pushed with both legs.
And…there. Blocked.
