Control: Out of the Box (The Girl in the Box Book 38)

by Robert J. Crane

  “You would die in the trying,” Shinyman rumbled. It was the first damned thing Veronika had heard him say.

  “Thanks for thinking of me when you put this team together,” Impervious said, sidling up to her, wearing his winning smile on his invincible damned lips. “I like doing impossible things almost as much as I like money, and getting this crew to all face in the same direction without killing each other? Seems like it fits the bill.”

  “Everyone will do their jobs,” Veronika said, catching a glare out of the darkness from Vamp. Guess she was still sore about that nickname. “You can take that to the bank.”

  Impervious nodded, still smiling. “Oh, I'm sure. Professionals, all of us. And it's a grand plan. Gotta admit, never heard anything quite like it before – tunnel into the White House, use a metal mover to rip open the presidential bunker, and tear the man himself to pieces right in his own home.” He made a clucking noise. “Gonna be a real game changer, you know. Bring metahumans out of the shadows, make us the centerpiece of every conversation for a while.”

  Veronika just stared at him. “When were we in the shadows in the last few years, exactly?”

  “Just saying things are going to change, we pull this off,” Impervious said. God, he just did not stop smiling. Not that she wanted him to, necessarily. “They'll all come after us, so...hope you got a nice hideaway.”

  “I'm not worried,” Veronika said, shifting her attention back to her phone. It was time to keep the boss updated.

  It wasn't really in her nature to keep Chapman tightly in the loop on a plan like this. The more people knew what was going on, after all, the more likelihood an assassination plan had of getting blown – exposed, that was. Still, she'd had to make certain concessions in this job.

  “Not even about her?” This came from Vamp, and Veronika turned to find Impervious had already slinked away, his trench coat sliding into the darkness toward where Rockrigger was already making a hole in the warehouse floor.

  Veronika just stared at Vamp. “Which 'her' you talking about? There's only about three and half billion women on the planet, just want to be sure we're talking about the same one.”

  Vamp hissed. “You know which one. The only one that would matter...for a job like this.”

  Veronika cracked a warped smile. “You scared?”

  Vamp's lips became a thin-pressed, pale line. “Only a fool wouldn't be.”

  “Haven't you heard?” Veronika just grinned. “Sienna Nealon's been kicked out of polite society – again. She's on the run, shut out. So unless you envision her tunneling her way into the White House from the opposite direction, while evading the law...how do you imagine she's going to factor into our little job?”

  Vamp's slitted eyes became narrower still. “I don't know. But I do know this...part of me wants to run into her. The other part...” She shook her head.

  Veronika just shrugged, looking back down at her phone. “Let's hope for the sake of the mission that part of you doesn't get your wish. Because the only way this works is if she doesn't see us coming.”

  CHAPTER ONE HUNDRED SIXTEEN

  Sienna

  My phone beeped, a text message popping up from that same familiar number:

  It's time.

  I yawned, sitting up on my cot, blinking the sleep out of my eyes. The familiar tapping of fingers on a keyboard was still going strong over in the corner, Cassidy high as hell on amphetamines and coding up a storm.

  “Hey,” I said, pushing off the cot and staggering toward her. I really needed coffee. Checking my phone, I could see I was squarely in the middle of the damned early morning hours, before any Starbucks would be open. Not that I could show my mug in a coffee shop right now. Or my face, for that matter, because it'd get recognized.

  Cassidy's shoulders were dancing up and down in time with music, and her fingers moved in a smooth blur. I could track the motions, maybe even the keystrokes if I paid close attention, but I didn't care and so I just approached wide around and shouted, “HEY!” really loudly to signal I was coming up on her.

  She jerked in surprise, ditching her ear buds and putting a hand over her heart. “Sorry. Forgot you were here.” She shook her head. Even at this distance I could actually hear her heart beating at an absurd pace now that the music was paused and the tapping had stopped. She looked at me for a second, then turned back to her screen. “So, Chris Byrd committed 'suicide' last night–”

  “I like the scare quotes.”

  “Because we both know he didn't commit suicide,” Cassidy said, and pulled up another screen with a surveillance picture of a woman, in a crowd, holding her hands over her mouth in shock. “This lady look familiar to you?”

  Of course she did. “Vaguely,” I said.

  “I found her driver's license in the Texas DPS database,” Cassidy said, tapping away. “Doubt Chapman or his lackeys could, but I did. Little side project I ran last year, penetrating those databases.”

  “Is hacking a federal crime?”

  “Yeah, but there are state laws, too,” Cassidy said, apparently missing my inference. “Good thing no one could track it back to me.”

  “Except the FBI agent you just confessed it to...?”

  Cassidy shot me an evil grin. “You wouldn't turn me in for this. Not with the evidence of my crime so intricately tied to implicating 'Mimaw' in helping Chris Byrd hang himself.”

  Well, she had me there. “How'd you know who she was?” I stared at her, trying to hide my surprise.

  “You've got your secrets, I've got mine,” Cassidy said, zooming the picture in on Persephone's face. “How'd she do it, you think? Grabbed him with the tree, restrained his hands with the shoots, used it to fasten the noose around his neck and just...let him swing 'til it was over?”

  I felt a mild twist of discomfort pondering that. “Probably.” I'd seen her use a tree to restrain Wolfe in the past, and he was a legit beast, so holding back a soft reporter while she slipped a noose on him wouldn't be too difficult.

  “That's dark.” Cassidy turned, grinning at me. “I love it.”

  “You'll love what comes next, then,” I said, glancing at the message that had come through on my phone, waking me up from an unsatisfying slumber. “I gotta run, but first...”

  She perked up. “Ooh. Is this the last thing you're going to ask of me?”

  “Nearly,” I said. “Out of curiosity – the hotel Jaime Chapman checked into. What's the name of it?”

  She stared at me for a moment, then spun back around. I let her sit in silence for about thirty seconds as she tapped away diligently, three different screens changing rapidly, over and over, in that time, before she announced, “Capitol Suites. Checked in two days ago. Booked until the day after tomorrow.” And spun back around. “You're going to go right at him, huh?”

  Another text came in: Almost there. Ready to go?

  I typed Yes and hit send.

  “Hello?” Cassidy asked.

  “Yeah.” I nodded, turning around to leave. “It's time,” I said, parroting the original text message I'd gotten, the one that woke me up.

  “Time for what?” Cassidy called after me, a certain glee bleeding through into her question.

  “Time to end this bullshit,” I said. Because it was.

  CHAPTER ONE HUNDRED SEVENTEEN

  Chapman

  Three syringes waited for Jaime on his desk when he walked into his office, and he headed right for them. “Make yourself comfortable,” he said to Chase as he scooped them off his desk. They weren't in anything fancy, just a simple case, each with a label, hand-written: BASE, BOOSTER, and ADDITIONAL SKILLS.

  Jaime moved swiftly to his bar, grabbing a bottle of vodka and dumping it on his arm before stabbing the first needle, the one labeled BASE, into a vein. He injected it, cringing against the slight sting. Must have touched a nerve.

  Chase watched him from by the desk. She'd shucked out of her coat and was standing there, eyeing him. “Maybe I should have tested those for poison f
irst?”

  “If Sienna Nealon can anticipate me enough to poison the drugs I'm taking to power up, she's going to run the table anyway and I'd be lucky to go out quickly,” Chapman said, not even hesitating before grabbing the BOOSTER shot and stabbing it into the same vein. He pushed the plunger down and – nothing. He felt a little pressure in his arm, but that was it. No drug effects – yet, at least.

  Chase grunted, sauntering over to his desk and looking around. “What kind of power are you hoping to develop?”

  “Something that will even the odds,” he said, sticking in the ADDITIONAL SKILLS syringe and plunging it all in. That done, he pulled the needle out and pushed his sleeve back down, soaking it with vodka before doing so. He didn't care about the shirt, it was probably only a few hundred bucks, and what was a little blood?

  “Lots of options there,” Chase said. “Especially if you catch her off guard.”

  That made Chapman smile. “How could she see this coming?”

  Chase just grunted. “She has ways.”

  Chapman thought about that a minute. “What's the deal? The real deal – with her, I mean? Because every time I've met her, she seems to be bumbling her way through events that are way too big for her.”

  Chase blinked, clearly giving it some thought. “She does – some of the time, at least. But there's something about her...this unwillingness to quit, even when she's in over her head. The urge to attack into the teeth of impossible odds. And she's trained.”

  Chapman nodded. “Her mother's doing.”

  “I don't think it was just her mom,” Chase said, eyes narrowed and looking up and right, concentrating, thinking out her answer. “She trains in her off time. Practices. To be more lethal. And clearly she's been hiding some secrets right under your nose. There's a level of preparation and planning from her, when she can, that defies what you'd think.”

  “Clearly,” Chapman said, mopping at his arm. A little streak of blood dribbled down his wrist. “Because I don't think much of her intellectual capacity.”

  “What do you think it is, then?” Chase asked, folding her arms in front of her. “That allows her to do these things?”

  “Luck,” Chapman said. “Viciousness. Her powers. There's a synergistic effect at work there. That combined with a reputation has let her pull off things – bold gambits and whatnot – that others couldn't predict.”

  “Including on you.”

  “Including on me.” Chapman forced a smile.

  “But you're still underestimating her.” Chase's tone was heavy, her presence dark. “You might want to give the devil her due.”

  Chapman was readying a reply when his phone beeped. He fished it out of his pocket and found Devin pinging him, then launched right into a vidchat.

  “Screenshare,” Devin said without preamble, and once Jaime had accepted, a live video popped up. It was a car, sliding through dark, near-empty streets.

  “What am I looking at here?” Chapman asked, staring at the phone. It wasn't large enough to give him the level of resolution he needed to really tell what was going on, so he walked over to the 86-inch monitor on his wall and jacked it in, turning it to the appropriate channel. The phone projected up onto the screen sideways, and suddenly Jaime could see the street – well, slightly better. It was still awfully dark.

  “Just a sec,” Devin said, voice amplified, coming out of the TV speaker system. “Zooming in when he hits a corner...and...”

  The picture freeze-framed, and sure enough, Devin had stopped on a surveillance camera angle giving a good view of the driver. Chapman could see the face, was peering at the grainy, blown-up image–

  “Facial recognition just caught it,” Devin said. “Three blocks from your hotel in DC and closing fast. Watch this.”

  Side-by-side photos popped up – the EMT from New York, the rideshare driver that had taken Sienna Nealon home after the press conference–

  98% MATCH

  “That's him,” Chapman whispered. “He's going to my hotel?”

  “Yep,” Devin said, “I'm betting. And furthermore, when you look over here–”

  The camera angle flipped, and suddenly Chapman was looking at the passenger side of the vehicle. It seemed normal for a second, and then–

  Ms. Pac-Man's face appeared in the passenger window, a digital construct imposed on the image, looking wildly out of place and yet...

  “She's there, too,” Chapman said, feeling a thrill of fear and relief, mingled all into one. “And you're sure they're going to–”

  “You'll see for yourself in about thirty seconds.”

  Chase was watching the wall monitor, too, staring at new images of the facial-blocked figure. “That's Nealon. Coming right at your last known position.”

  Chapman let out a low chuckle. “Not the subtle kind, is she? Boy, will she be disappointed.”

  “For now, maybe,” Chase said ominously. “She doesn't tend to stay that way long.”

  He checked the time on his phone, did a quick calculation based on Veronika's estimates. “She doesn't have to be. I just need her that way for another...oh, fifteen, twenty minutes.” A slow smile spread across his face. “After that...we'll figure out how to deal with her. Once and for all.”

  CHAPTER ONE HUNDRED EIGHTEEN

  Veronika

  Rockrigger's efforts were surprisingly quiet, Veronika noted from her position about a hundred yards back in the impromptu tunnel. It was dank, near-silent, the six presidential assassins all keeping their mouths shut, as if afraid speaking might set off a sensor somewhere ahead. She trudged over a luminous green glow stick; Steelskin was dropping them as they went, trailing behind the combo of Rockrigger compacting aside the dirt and Metalmind warning him about upcoming obstacles. Consequently, the earthen tunnel had a strange pitch to it, sometimes climbing abruptly a few feet and then dipping again to avoid whatever piping was in their way.

  “How far?” Impervious asked. He flashed her a smile – and his phone. The face lit up, with a big 'NO SERVICE.'

  Veronika felt a strong need to roll her eyes, but at least he'd spoken meta-low. Though any sensor that could pick them up, talking, in this tunnel, was surely sensitive enough to detect Rockrigger up there, moving the earth to get them to the presidential bunker. “I don't know,” she said. “We'll get there when we get there.”

  Vamp let out a high-pitched giggle behind them. That was eerie. Veronika gave her a quick look; her pale face caught the faint glow of one of the glow sticks and looked positively demonic, as though illuminated by magic from some evil spell.

  Veronika shook that thought out of her mind. “Not far,” she amended, because her earlier, testier answer didn't really reflect anything but the pit of nerves jangling in her stomach like live wires. She'd been counting the paces since they entered the tunnel, and estimated they were either eight or nine-tenths of the way there, depending on how long her strides had been. “Soon. Real soon.”

  CHAPTER ONE HUNDRED NINETEEN

  Chapman

  “She's at the hotel,” Devin announced, as though he weren't watching it for himself.

  Chapman smiled, checking his phone again. They were minutes away from the big game, the final move. Queen takes king – but checkmate wouldn't end this game. No, this one would go to the death, beyond skill and into the realm of survival.

  That was fine. Chess always bored Chapman, and he suspected Sienna Nealon wasn't much of a player in any case.

  She and the man parked under the portico. The Ms. Pac-Man face moved across the screen as smoothly as if he were watching a video game suddenly translated into real life – like that cheesy Adam Sandler movie from years past.

  “What was that Adam Sandler movie called?” Chapman asked. “The one where he fought Pac-Man?”

  Devin looked at him blankly over the vidchat. “Uh...I don't know?”

  “Pixels, I think,” Chase said.

  “That was it, yes,” Chapman said, filled with a rush of relief. Not knowing was a strange, unsa
tisfying sensation. “Devin – what's the situation at the White House right now?”

  “Uhm...lemme check,” Devin said, and put his head down, typing. “Looks like...all quiet. Maximum coverage by Secret Service. Place is locked down tight by air and ground.” He focused back on the screen. “Why? You got something cooking there?”

  “Maybe,” Chapman said, burying his smile. Devin was going to need to be dealt with later. He knew too much. How much did he know? Chapman was having a hard time keeping track.

  Some of that was the fatigue. He'd been awake an awfully long time.

  Soon. He'd sleep soon. He checked his phone again, not daring to broadcast to the Network. Not right now.

  After it was over. He'd tell them then.

  And then...maybe he'd call Gwen before he went to sleep for the night. Here, in his office, where he could await Sienna Nealon.

  And the final move.

  CHAPTER ONE HUNDRED TWENTY

  Veronika

  “Solid metal straight ahead,” Metalmind said, peering her skinny head into the darkness as Rockrigger pushed aside the earth. Gently, gently, no rumble to indicate his actions, no miniature earthquake sound, or noise like a drill pushing through. “Less than fifty meters.” She turned to Veronika, and her eyes were lit by the glow sticks peppering the floor of the tunnel. They were all feeling that anticipation now, and even crabby-ass Metalmind was showing it. “This is it.”

  “Good,” Veronika said, trying to conceal her own feelings about the matter. This was the big moment. All they had to do was not screw it up.

  A high-pitched giggle from Vamp let Veronika know that no, she wasn't the only one feeling it. The glow sticks cast a green aura over Shinyman, too, as he stared straight ahead into the tunnel Rockrigger was forging.