Dark Crypto (Thorne Inc. Book 1)

by Neil Mosspark

  Olivia could smell the helicopter on the wind before it arrived. The waft of ozone greeted her seconds before the dark frame of the large Black Hawk silently dipped into the light of the streetlamps. Easing down, it rested on the ground, humming quietly.

  “They just arrived,” Olivia said. The high neck on her cocktail dress hid the paper-thin throat mic, and the microphone buried in her ear was skin-toned and would only be visible if someone was looking for it.

  She stepped out of the darkness, walking across the parking lot in her flat shoes. She resisted the urge to dip her head down and protect her eyes. There was no wind, no scouring dust, no worry about loose items destroying high-speed blades. They were just not there. The newly installed gravity lift plate was still in place, and taking up half of the space of the rotors, it sat motionlessly.

  As she neared the side door, it slid open, and Jay stepped out. He looked like an overly tanned tourist in the loud Hawaiian shirt. His thin face was grinning like a schoolboy as his eyes looked her over. “Whoa... Sorry, we were looking for an out-of-work merc pretending to be a private investigator. I think we have the wrong parking lot. Is this the hooker lot?”

  “What? Is my money no good? I was kind of hoping to pick up a guy to party with. You’re clean, right?” She pulled out an envelope containing the last money from her bank account.

  Jay took it with one hand. “Yeah, just not cheap.” He laughed and extended his free hand to assist her up.

  Olivia batted his hand away and smiled. “I can manage on my own.” She hiked up her skirt and stepped up inside, plopping down unladylike onto one of the fold-down seats. Jay followed suit and leaned forward to slide close the door.

  Even before he had sat down, the Black Hawk began to lift.

  “This is two rides in a week, Olivia. Business must be good,” he tucked the envelope into his back pocket.

  “Yeah, well, to tell you the truth, it's not. Had some Anvil guys beat up my secretary.”

  His Cheshire cat grin dissolved into seriousness. “What?”

  “They're not going to do it again, though.”

  “Dead?”

  “Stone cold,” Olivia said as she buckled herself in.

  “Anyone I know?”

  Olivia shook her head. “No, that’s the thing. These guys were super green. They were there as a wet work team. More training in torture and murder than fighting. I got lucky, Jay. Really, really lucky.”

  “How’d you know they were Anvil?”

  “They all had the tattoos. All relatively brand new. And in a new style. They had a circle around the anvil. It was a bit different. Mine doesn’t have the circle.”

  Olivia could see him digesting the news.

  “Had any trouble at the office?” Olivia asked.

  Jay shook his head. “No. None. They would be stupid if they did. We’re pretty built-up now. About fifty guys or so ... I’ll pass it on to the old man, though. I don’t like being haunted by old ghosts.”

  “You're not the one being haunted.”

  “You really should make peace with the old man. Come back and work for us. It’s safer on this side of the fence. Mostly legal. A bit of the grey area still. Less than you have had to deal with. Case in point, this little outing.”

  Olivia’s thumb rubbed the tattoo on her hand as she thought it over. “Maybe some day. I want to see if I can make this work. I just want to freelance for a while. Be one of the good guys. Balance the books a little.”

  “Just think about it. I’m sure he would take you back if you got that lasered off.” Jay pointed at her hand.

  “I’ll think about it.”

  The helicopter banked hard before continuing the slow climb to the altitude of the intended flight path. Olivia had made sure Jay’s pilot had filed his flight plan with a nearby airport, and another one to return later. She didn’t want anyone poking around as to why a helo left, circled the Neotech building, and returned to the small private strip.

  They rode for a while in silence, and she mentally rehearsed the entry.

  After a few minutes, Jay spoke up. “We’re going to come down pretty fast. We’ll have the door open, and you can just step off, but be quick. We want to stay on the air traffic radar and not draw a lot of attention. It will only look like a radar glitch if you're quick.”

  “Don’t worry. I got this. You taught me well.” Olivia undid her seatbelt. She leaned forward and called out to the pilot, “What’s the ETA?”

  “About three minutes out,” came the pilot's voice as he checked the GPS.

  “You feel comfortable running dark for the next few minutes? I want my eyesight when I step off.”

  “Sure, you’re the paying customer.” Jay turned around and talked to the pilot for a moment. A second later, the interior changed to a dim red light as Jay shifted from sitting across from Olivia to sitting on her right. He looked out through the windows, searching for the target. He was grinning again.

  “There it is,” the pilot yelled out, pointing forward and down to the ground.

  The large mega-block was completely unlit from the outside, and only a few small red marker lights highlighted the corners of the multistory structure.

  “You ready?” Jay asked. His smile was replaced by the look of business. The jokes and fun were over.

  Olivia nodded, shifting out of her seat. She hiked up the long skirt and knelt near the door. Her hand was gripping the handle on the left side. It was a long drop.

  Jay held on to a handle on the right, reached forward across her, and returned with a confident pull. The relative quiet of the interior was replaced by the roar of the wind.

  Olivia sat down on the edge with a death grip on the handle. Her feet braced against the landing struts of the helicopter. The dress flapped violently in the wind.

  “We're going dark,” Jay yelled at her. She could see he had put on a headset to communicate with the pilot.

  She nodded that she understood and watched Jay sit next to her on the skid. His free hand shielded the mic from the wind as he spoke, and a second later every working light on the helicopter turned off. Save for some instrument highlighted in red, the only illumination inside was from the street lights below.

  Jay put out a fist to signal for her to wait. It was their standard procedure, but she knew better than to step off hundreds of feet from the ground. Even at a standstill, let alone the breakneck speed they were travelling at, the impact with the ground from this height would be lethal.

  She took the time to assess the size of the rooftop. It would have been an easy job to land on the helipad on the far side, away from where they were now. She was sure that there were cameras and sensors. A large landing pad lay open and vacant. From this elevation, she could see a large series of massive glass skylights, letting light down into the building. The cabbie from the day before had been correct. Inside she could see the building laid out similar to a Roman amphitheater, but instead of seats, balconies and green spaces wrapped around the edges.

  Taking a deep breath, she looked at Jay and pointed downward, signalling to start the drop-off. She took a deep breath and held on tight, bracing herself. Jay spoke into the microphone and gave her a count with his hand.

  Three ... two ... One...

  The helicopter dropped rapidly. She felt herself initially gently rise up off the floor. Unlike the helicopter blades that the Black Hawk had once used, the gravity disk didn’t need to bank, or flare, or even worry about residual lift from the inertia of the blades. It could turn off and drop to the ground like a stone.

  She watched Neotech's roof edge rapidly race toward her feet. In her mind, it appeared far too fast, and she braced for the impact, holding tight to the handle.

  Only a short distance away from the edge, she felt the return of gravity. The helo’s falling descent had ended, and gravity was amplified as her rear pressed down into the floor. It reminded her of how her body responded to a loop in a fast rollercoaster. The change was so strong that it was dif
ficult for her to lift her head.

  As quick as it had started, the force acting on her normalized and she opened her eyes. The wheel hovered only inches above the edge of the wall. Jay motioned for her to step off with a chopping motion, pointing toward the rooftop.

  As she had practiced a thousand times before, she stepped off. The crunch of gravel underfoot was the only sound as she moved to the nearest patch of darkness. Crouching behind the shadow of an air conditioner unit, she watched as the blacked-out helicopter rocketed vertically to continue the legal portion of its flight path.

  The only noise was a subtle hum. She sat for a moment, watching it move away and becoming attuned to her new environment. After a moment, and while at its original altitude, she could see the blinking lights of the aircraft turn back on.

  They had been off the radar for less than ten seconds.

  No alarms blared, no spotlights, no police or security ran to the roof. Just the soft noise of the exhaust fans around her. She sat crouched for a minute to get her pulse and breathing under control.

  With nerves calmed, she crept toward a set of raised hutches containing the elevator’s working rooms. Every so often she would peer down into the interior of the building through the massive skylight. Through some feat of architecture, a slightly domed structure of glass and steel was suspended across the expanse.

  Olivia began jogging across the gravel of the roof and kept far enough away that any light wouldn’t illuminate her black-clad form.

  Sliding up to the hutch, she tucked into the darkness of the exterior side. A service door with a ventilation panel was the only entry point. Slinging the purse over her shoulder, she walked up to it and checked the lock.

  “You still there?” she asked, touching the earpiece to ensure it was still in place.

  “Yes, are you on the roof yet?” came Jack’s voice.

  “Just outside the elevator hut. You sure this card will work?”

  “I guarantee it.” She could hear the confidence in his voice. It didn’t make her feel any better that he was miles away and she was the one breaking and entering.

  She waved her pass card over the sensor, and the panel blinked red.

  Her breath caught in her chest. “It didn’t work.”

  “Try again. Just touch it to the pad,” Jack said.

  Olivia took a deep breath and held it to the pad this time instead of waving it. The pad turned green and clicked open, allowing her to slip inside. Relief washed over her. “It worked.”

  “I told you I guarantee my product.”

  “I’ll hold you to that,” she said. “I’m inside. Now, where?”

  A set of stairs descended in front of her down to another service door most likely attached to the emergency stairwell.

  “There’s an emergency exit door leading to the main stairwell. It’s at the bottom of a small set of stairs.

  She moved down the stairs and checked the door. The handle was unlocked. She considered that it might be easier just to walk down to the level she needed rather than try to sneak into an elevator. Easing the door open, she could see a brightly lit stairwell. When inside, she checked the interior handle and found it to be nonexistent.

  “There’s no handle on the inside of the door. I’d be stuck on the inside,” Olivia stated. “We need a plan B.”

  “One sec,” Jack said in her ear.

  Olivia didn’t like the idea of being trapped in a stairwell like a rat.

  Ducking back inside the elevator mechanical room, she took a deep breath and reviewed her options.

  Each of the elevators was covered by a metal grating, each with its own hatch. It was unlocked and in place for the safety of anyone needing to inspect elevators. The motor above her head hummed into action and startled her. Far below Olivia, an elevator descended, lowered by the cables attached to the motor.

  Ignoring the noise, she bent down and tested the hatch in the metal grating next to the cables. It was easy to open and could be lifted and would allow her to slip into the shaft. She lowered it back into place. The elevator in that particular shaft was ten floors below.

  Standing, she walked from elevator shaft to elevator shaft, checking each to see if any of the elevators were near the top.

  “I might be able to get access to the top of the elevators,” she said as she stepped out onto the grating. Looking down the dizzying height of the shaft overtook her for a moment with vertigo. She could see an access ladder embedded in the wall of the shaft.

  “There’s a ladder downward, but none of them are close enough. It would take me most of the night to climb down to one of them. I should have brought rappelling gear.”

  “We just have to deal with the situation as it is,” Jack stated.

  “Well, as it is, I have to wait until one of these comes close enough that I can climb down to it. Is there any way to recall it to the top?”

  “No, you just have to wait. There’s only one recall position, and it’s at the bottom.”

  “Waiting it is, I guess.”

  “That might be the best way. Once in through the top, you should be able to operate the elevator. You just need the fireman’s key. It opens the access panel on the top of the elevator. It’s used for maintenance and to get people out in case it was ever stuck between floors.”

  “Where is it?”

  “Well, the key is usually in a locked panel near the bottom entrance of the building, or in the mechanical room at the top. Describe to me what you see.”

  Olivia stood and looked around. “There’s a long room kind of like a hallway. On the right side there are the elevator shafts covered by metal grating and hatches. On the left there are electrical boxes ... and a small shelf.”

  “What’s on the shelf?”

  She walked down the length of the room, past the myriad electrical fuse boxes and panels. Stopping at the small wooden shelf, she could see a ‘T’-shaped key hanging from under the wooden shelf. A single white paper tag was attached. Flipping the tag over, she read the handwritten inscription aloud. “Fireman’s key. Is that it?”

  “What does it look like?”

  “It’s shaped like a small ‘T’”

  “Yes, that’s it,” he said. “It should fit into the panel on the top of the elevator. The panel should hinge upward once inserted.”

  She snatched it up and paced back and forth above the elevator shafts.

  “The elevators are all near the bottom,” she said.

  It took another five minutes of waiting before one began moving upward. Eventually, it came to rest two floors below.

  “I think I have one. It’s two floors below. I’m going to try for it.”

  Olivia flipped up the hatch and scaled down the interior ladder until she could replace the hatch. Her intent was to leave no trace of her entrance or exit. Moving quickly, she down climbed to the elevator. Inside, people chatted and laughed. Much of the conversation she couldn’t catch but key words about a “party” and “awards ceremony” caught her ear.

  With only a foot or two away, she heard the door slide shut. Dropping the distance, she landed in a crouch. She was thankful for the elasticity of the dress, but not so thankful for the color. The top of the elevator was covered in a layer of dust, and she frowned as she realized that the bottom two inches were now covered in a fine silt.

  Standing in the dark, Olivia balanced atop of the elevator, feeling it rumble beneath her until eventually it slowed to a stop. The people disembarked while others got on. She stood for a few more minutes, getting a feel for the ebb and flow of the traffic. As her eyes adjusted, she was able to make out large numbers spraypainted by hand on the inside of the walls just under each door — likely left from the construction of the building.

  Each time the elevator moved, it collected people from a floor below or above. Afterward, it always seemed to move to the third floor to deposit them. Each time the door opened, the volume of some far-off music increased.

  While she waited, Olivia identified
the rescue panel in the top of the elevator and crouched down to inspect the surface. While the car was full, she inserted the key but did not turn it. The absence of a locking mechanism meant an easy drop into the elevator. She waited until the elevator had emptied its contents and waited for a moment for the doors to close.

  Quietly, she turned the key and lifted the small hatch. She could see through the corrugated Plexiglas panel that the car was empty. Quickly but gingerly, she slid the panel to the side as the car began to move again. Slipping in, she hung for a moment by the edge of the hole. As the elevator slowed, her panicked hands reached up quickly and pulled the access hatch closed. It only took a second to reach up and slide the light back into place.

  The doors opened at the very moment she brought her hands down. She adjusted the shoulders of her dress. A man in a tuxedo stepped on, followed by a heavy-set woman in a blue dress that was far too tight for her figure. The woman glowered at her as soon as she got on the elevator.

  Olivia tried not to make eye contact.

  The woman leaned into the man and muttered about the need to talk to someone about the “Servers riding the citizen elevators.”

  Olivia’s hand dropped to her tiny purse, checking that the asp baton was still there. She wondered for a moment if the woman would even be able to put up a fight.

  The doors closed and the elevator began to move. By the time the elevator had stopped, her calm hands were absently smoothing the form-fitting dress. Ignoring the couple, she dusted off the bottom. On the way back up, a flood of well-dressed partiers crowded inside, and she avoided eye contact. They laughed and chattered with each other, discussing their day. Olivia blended into the background almost completely until someone touched her arm.

  Olivia looked over, tensing for a fight. She felt her opposite hand tighten into a fist. With this many people inside the elevator, she wouldn’t be able to get the baton out and extended, let alone swing it with any force. Her knuckles whitened as she shifted her stance and turned.

  A young Asian woman slightly shorter than her looked up at Olivia, smiling. “You have some mascara on your cheek, love.”