"He's a visitor accompanied by an employee. And we're on the sidewalk outside the office. You can't pick up a visitor's badge at the gate." Nikki narrowed her gaze. "Now I know they don't use interns for security guards, so there's bound to be something you're supposed to be doing." She scoffed at me and headed back inside.
"Did she know-" Donny started to ask.
"Yep." I said, swiping in the side door and approaching the bunker entrance.
"How'd she find this place?"
"Same way she found the other one, she followed us."
"Why take an internship here?"
"I gather her mother's been on her to take responsibility and get a job. It's probably her way to keep an eye on us and still get employment since we refused to hire her for the team."
"Not saying it wasn't the right move, but why'd you turn her away?"
"I'll show you the security footage of her hitting Xiv some time. Close contact with the team is not the place for her."
Nick grumbled a bit about how hard it was to climb into a one-piece hero suit with cracked ribs, but didn't let his injury stop him from suiting up. I wondered how much it would cost to dig a tunnel from the bunker entrance to the garage before discarding that thought for the possibility of simply extending the office building to connect to the garage. Neither option was something I could will into existence, but both would take out the awkward step of hurrying back and forth outside between the TNT Research office and the garage. It just looked silly in daylight. We headed downtown with Donny in the backseat. He didn't have any spare outfits at the base, so he'd probably put back on the one he'd been wearing when he was sent to Vanguard.
I can't recall the last time I'd visited Sterling Towers so frequently. Just connecting to the network was usually sufficient to handle all of my business with the Fund. We swiped through security, and Donny got hassled again because his file image was still the Warped Woodsman. "You're already officially Baron Mortis, just update your profile," I said. "This is absurd."
"I don't know how, okay?"
"I'm sure someone here can tall us," Icerazor said. "Let's just go have a chat with Shiva."
A holographic panel popped up near the security station, a waveform appearing on it. "You can talk to me in any non-private section of the building," Shiva said. "Though I presume you seek a less public venue for discussion."
"Yes, Shiva," I said. I still wasn't sure what gender pronoun you gave to a computer. It would have to do. "Do you eavesdrop on everyone?"
"No, but the security checkpoint is of particular interest to my duties."
"I presume Razordemon is in?"
"He is, and I have informed him of your arrival. Please proceed to subbasement three, room zero fifteen." The security guard simply pointed to the elevators before we could ask. Pressing the down button, we were greeted by the prompt opening of the nearest doors. A holographic panel appeared near the buttons, pointing at the one marked 'SB3'.
"Shiva - that is borderline condescending."
"My apologies, my goal was to be helpful."
"I appreciate that," I said, pushing 'SB3'. "But there are nuances to the interaction which, well, can create resentment instead of gratitude."
"I am aware of that. The boundary line does vary from person to person. I have not yet determined where it lies with the three of you. After all, I was not brought online yesterday."
"I think Shiva's mocking you," Donny whispered.
"And here I thought Captain Obvious was on the list of disallowed codenames." Icerazor smirked, but Donny gave me a confused look. I was distracted when a massive metal door closed above the elevator, blotting out the sky. Another opened below us and we sank into a dimly lit shaft. "I presume these security doors are here for good reason?"
"They keep both intruders and rainwater out of the lower levels," Shiva said. It was definitely mocking me. Neutrino might have his doubts, but the computer seemed fairly sentient to me. I wasn't so sure I liked it. I'd have to check on what safeguards there were to keep Shiva in line and in the building. I didn't want to think about it poking around Gruefield's systems.
A rather dull concrete shaft sped past the glass walls of the elevator before we came to a stop a few floors down. The doors opened with a cheery ding on a plain white corridor with a green stripe along the wall.
"As you have never been to the subbasement, would you like directions?" Shiva asked.
"Sure, thank you." A holographic stick figure appeared by the green stripe and ran to the intersection. There it waited until we caught up and ran down one of the side halls. We followed it through the eerily empty halls to a plain door marked 'SB3-015, Compliance Officer'. I knocked.
"Come in," Dad said.
The stick figure we'd been following blinked out of existence. Inside was a room with white painted concrete walls, a sturdy metal desk and a large hologram table. Currently, it displayed a three dimensional representation of New Port Arthur. A number of tags marked points on the map.
"Yes, my office is in the sub-basement," Dad said. At some point, he'd suited up as well. His familiar red and gold was a reassuring consistency.
"Is Compliance Officer your official title?" Icerazor asked.
"It's apt."
I woke my wrist computer. "I have the serial numbers we wanted to track," I said.
"Ah, a records search," Shiva said. "I should have guessed."
"You have a distinct advantage over me in this sort of task," I said. "I was hoping you would lend us your aptitude in this matter."
"But of course. I was made for this. What are we looking for?"
"Guns, or rather, the people within the police force they are associated with."
"Just send the file over. You don't need to read it to me." I was wary about linking my wrist computer to Shiva, especially given the connection to my eye. But at least it wasn't trying to connect and simply waited for me to send the data. A few moments later, Shiva said, "I have it. Thank you." I turned off the network connection on my wrist computer.
"How long will this take?" Icerazor said. "Ball park, I mean. Do we wait here, go get lunch, take a vacation?"
"Curiouser and curiouser," Shiva said.
"What is?"
"Federal records indicate that these weapons were imported and sold to the MPD General Armory. MPD records, however, do not include these serial numbers."
"Not computerized?"
"Not entered. Other weapons of the same model are listed and associated with officers. Not these. One moment." Shiva paused. "A cross reference of purchase requests by date with the federal records shows a perfect fit. However, one shows on MPD records as being canceled and refunded, while the sale is still shown as having gone through. That set on the federal side contains these serial numbers."
"What more can you tell us about that transaction?" I asked.
"Though listed as having been sent by the company which sold the weapons to the MPD, the scanned check is drawn on the account of Atlas Holdings."
"I am not familiar with that company."
"Neither am I," Shiva said. "It appears to consist of a bank account and a street address. Forty-one fifty Avenue P."
"Thank you, Shiva," I said. "I guess the next logical step would be to see if there's anything at that address." Dad gave me a nod.
"What worries me is how you got to all that information." Icerazor said.
"Government databases are terribly insecure. They're built by either disgruntled employees or the lowest bid contractor, and then left to rot from a technology perspective."
"Let's not have this debate here," I said, nudging Icerazor towards the door.
"What debate?"
"The one that your questions will invariably lead to."
"You're concerned abou
t my willingness and ability to access information in what appears to be an unauthorized manner. This is an understandable concern," Shiva said. "Currently, I limit myself to public records and that data which falls under the spirit of the freedom of information laws. Albeit without going through the formality of filing and waiting for the inevitable hostile response from the bureaucracy which has decided to ignore the spirit of the law and abide by the strict letter thereof."
"That's the part that bugs me. The part where you set your limits."
"Who sets your limits?" Shiva asked. "Beyond the repercussions for gross violations of the law and community code, what constrains your behavior? Only you do. I am no different."
"So what you're saying is 'trust me'?"
"Yes."
Part 18
4150 Avenue P was tucked away behind Old Mill Ridge, but not quite to the 'Barons'. Originally called the Robber Barons, it was a neighborhood made up of old money estates, some of which had been sold to new money. Old Mill Ridge itself was dominated by the Bisbane Condos, stacks of garden terraces to make multimillion dollar housing units in competition with Leyden Heights for most of the new money. Bisbane lost. After failing to draw their target clientele, they had to keep cutting their asking price until they bobbed into upper middle class. It was still a snobbish district, playing on its place as part of the city's skyline and the visibility of the development.
The diagonal strip of lower, soggier ground between Old Mill Ridge and the Barons was practically blighted. Despite, or because of, its proximity, neither neighborhood wanted to do business with the shops and companies that opened up there. Many closed their doors, or retooled to cater to the employees of the residents. 4150 was sandwiched between a bar and a dry cleaners. Neither of its neighbors looked respectable, and were not the sort of places I'd voluntarily do business with. It was a brick fronted two story building with no parking lot, and no first floor windows. It was narrow enough that two windows on the second floor made the facade look crowded. There was no sign out front, just the street number.
"Sooo," Donny said. "Does that look like a supervillain lair to you?"
"Outside of Subject Sixteen, the Morlocks don't have powered individuals that I'm aware of," I said.
"But they do have guns."
"And explosive ammunition," Icerazor added. "Armor-piercing explosive ammunition, rather."
"So knocking down the front door is a bad idea."
"Only if you want to make the ceremony tonight," I said. "Suggestions?"
"No room for garbage pickup out front," Icerazor said. "There's probably an alley behind all three buildings and a second door back there. Might be a better point of entry than an exposed door on the street in broad daylight."
"Do we have any idea what's in there?" Donny asked.
"None whatsoever. It might not even be connected to the people who've appropriated the address."
"So that's why you're hesitating," Icerazor said.
"What?"
"Our chat with Shiva has got you thinking."
"If I knew that there were Morlocks in there and it isn't just someone whose address was stolen for use on the paperwork."
"If you knew, then what?"
"What?"
"You never finished the thought."
"If I knew I wouldn't hesitate."
Donny piped up again. "Then why don't we find that alley and check what's in their trash? They threw it out anyway, and it should help figure out what's in there without actually barging in."
"Sounds like a plan," I said, pulling away from the curb and looking for an entrance to this supposed alley. It turned out to run from forty-first street into a small unpaved plot which looked to be a mass of muds, weeds and broken glass. I did not leave the asphalt. We climbed out of the car and looked over the backs of the buildings. The bar had a small dumpster loaded with kitchen trash. It's aroma was the primary scent flooding the alleyway. The dry cleaners had two trash cans which were mostly empty. What was conspicuously absent was a receptacle for the building we were trying to investigate.
I frowned at the plain gray metal door. Some part of the back of my mind wanted a way out of the question that was nagging me. The first person to put the seed in my head had actually been Nikki Greeler. Though doing so at the point of a gun during a rooftop rant hadn't given it much traction. While I probably should give more than a few offhand thoughts to the implications of what we do, right now the doubt felt like an impediment.
I carefully tested the doorknob so as to avoid any sort of telltale rattle. It was locked. Intuition told me it was probably the sort of office door with a crash bar on the other side for ready egress in case of fire. Not very useful information since most of them were fairly resistant to shimming. I extracted my lockpicks with deliberate slowness as I told myself that probability said this was a front for Morlock shell companies. This was, after all, the world headquarters of Atlas Holdings.
All of my doubt and questioning turned out to be fairly moot. The door opened onto an empty room. Passing through the bare doorway to the front room, I found another similarly under-occupied space. Here the bare plywood decking was visible with swirls of old glue that used to hold down a carpet. The stairs were creaky, but the upstairs proved to be similarly devoid of people. One of the three office sized spaces it was carved into still had an ugly brown rug. The others were like the first floor. The water in the bathroom wasn't even on.
"Yeah, this was a real intrusion," Icerazor said.
"There's no mailbox."
"What?"
"This is a mailing address for Atlas Holdings. If there's no one here to accept the mail, where does it get dropped off? Or who picks it up from the post office?"
"I'm not sure those records are computerized, since they're probably handled by the local post office. And I doubt they're going to just tell us."
Donny's phone rang. "Hello?" He paused. "Actually I'm visiting family." Another pause. "I know." He rolled his eyes. "Is now the best time for that?" He flinched at a response almost loud enough for me to hear the voice on the other end. "I know, I heard." The struggle to maintain his calm was written across his features. "If you have issue with them, take it up with the board. You can even do it in person since you're in town." He blinked in confusion. "She hung up."
"Anything we need to know about?"
"Most of the All-Star Elementals are in town," Donny said. "They left Stoneclad and Jester of Anubis back west. Those two can't fly commercial."
"Too distinctive?"
"Just Jester. Stoneclad got into a brawl in an airport and got thrown on the no-fly list."
"So what did they want from you?"
"To step up the hunt for Hypershadow. And they're mad at you for not preventing the Morlocks from slandering Arclight."
"I wasn't aware we'd been drafted into being their PR guys."
"Not the best time for jokes," Donny said. "After tonight, they'll know I jumped ship. After which, they won't be relying on me to locate the amulet."
"Since we've had exactly zero leads beyond it being in New Port Arthur, I'm not sure what we can do."
Icerazor smirked.
"What is it?" I asked.
"I just had an almost completely insane idea."
"Will it work?"
"Not a clue."
"So what is it?" Donny asked.
"Isn't Hypershadow a mercenary? Could we just hire him?"
"That's Pax Carnifex," I said.
"Oh."
"Other than that, it's a great idea."
"I really should pay more attention, but when Ixahau gets super-serious, I have trouble not tuning her out."
"That's a really bad habit," I said. "The more serious she is, the more important what she's saying is."
"I know. How long until you're back to being team lead?"
"Ask Doctor Lindenbaum."
"It's stuffy in here," Donny said. "Let's get moving." We got into the alley and I was fumbling to unlock the car when Donny's phone rang again. "What?" His face blanched. "I'm sorry, Dad, I thought it was someone else." He paused. "No, caller ID isn't broken. I just forgot to look." He sighed. We both knew what mini-lecture he was getting. We'd heard it too often since being old enough to answer a phone. "All right. Was there something you called about?" He waited. "No I didn't tell them... Yes, I know they're not going to take it well, that's why I haven't managed to tell them yet." He sighed. "I know. Can we have this conversation when I'm not standing in an alley next to a dumpster?" He paused. "All right, I'll see you later."
Gruefield 18 (Tarnished Sterling Omnibus) Page 81