Got To Be A Hero

by Paul Duffau

  Ten minutes later, the safe sat impassively closed as the last option failed to work.

  “Dang it,” said Kenzie aloud. She breathed out heavily. She had been so sure. . . .

  She went back to the pad. She had the numbers right. It dawned on her and made her feel stupid. Her mother had complained enough that Kenzie was tired of it. The dates, she realized, were for tax filings for the company. Not an elaborate code. She slipped the drawer closed, resisting the urge to slam it.

  She had searched the compartment in the room that belonged to her mother. If the combination was here, she couldn’t see it. It wouldn’t be down in her office. That was too far away. The master bath was a dumb place to hide anything, but it was about the only place she hadn’t already investigated.

  She curled around the end of the bed, shooting a sideways glance at the titles on the spines of the stack of books on her father’s night table. She paused, half-turned.

  She hadn’t searched everything. She had skipped her father’s drawers, assuming the safe was business-related.

  What if it wasn’t?

  She hurried to that side of the bed. She braced the tabletop to keep it stable as she opened the drawer. If the stack of books avalanched, she’d never get it put back correctly.

  The interior of the drawer was sparse of possessions, but her eyes were drawn to a scrap of paper torn from the flap of an envelope. Four digits.

  Nooo, she thought. That’s too easy.

  She guided the dial around the sequence. A delicate click resonated through the tips of her fingers. The irony of her father, security maniac that he was, leaving the combination for her to find made her shake her head.

  She went from stooped over the safe to her haunches. Now that it was unlocked, a powerful reluctance to open the heavy-seeming door overtook her. Screwing up her courage, she reached and twisted the handle. The dull thud of the retracting bolts echoed. Taking a breath, she stood and pulled.

  She almost dropped it, the unexpected weight of the door catching her off guard. Grunting, she levered it up. When it crossed the vertical plane, the mass pushed the handle toward the wall. Minding her fingers, she rested it in a divot in the wall. It had probably slipped from her father’s hands and crunched into it.

  Inside the recesses of the safe sat stacked manila folders closed with brown string wrapped around yellowing once-white buttons. Kenzie recognized the firm indentations of her father’s handwriting on the label of the top folder. A name she didn’t know. Matthias. She lifted it out. The next one, much thicker, read Harold.

  With a chill coursing along her spine, she saw the files as they were, dossiers on the Family. One by one, she removed them, already certain that she would not find a memory stick or card or drive in the confines of the metal box. She had mistaken the safe for her mother’s; it was her father’s. Out came Belinda, Aric. Belinda’s file was the most slender in the stack. Every name except for the enigmatic Matthias related directly to her, right now.

  Her hand frozen in midair, she exposed the next file before she put down Aric’s. The tag read McKenzie. Her face went numb, and she swallowed. Hand trembling to the thumping of her heart, she put Aric’s file on the stack with the others. Her fingers shook as she pulled her file from the safe. She settled to a kneeling position, the file laid against the corner of the wooden enclosure. She fumbled at the twine, unwound it in jerks. The flap quivered as she opened it.

  The inch-thick stack to the right seemed to be updates on her. The page facing from that side covered the fallout of the kidnapping and the progress of the investigation. A growing sense of repugnance built as she scanned the details. She flipped up the page. A terse account of the attempted abduction. The next page recapped her school records for the year. Feeling defiled, she shifted her gaze away from the pages proving she had no privacy that her parents would not violate to the other side of the packet. Her birth certificate—it read “Certificate of Live Birth” and had her name and birthday visible above the edge of the flap of the pouch—sat to the left.

  Kenzie had never actually seen her birth certificate. She drew the stiff paper out with a rasping sound, feeling a moment of resistance as though the folder was reluctant to let her see the document. She gave it a tug. The folder surrendered up the page.

  She noted the embossed seal, read through the data fields. All the print was in capitals. The top line had the certificate number and an issue date—which didn’t match her birthday, earning a frown. Next was her given name, McKenzie (with no middle name), and last name, Graham. Then came her actual birthday, correcting the record. The issue date must refer to when the document had been created, she thought. Then, place of birth, Seattle, King County, Washington, and sex, Female.

  Her gaze dropped to the next line. Her mouth dropped open, and with an explosive push, her breath forced itself out as though someone had punched her in the gut.

  Blinking, she looked again. Read Mother’s Maiden Name: Elowyn Graham. Place of birth, Seattle. Age, 23.

  Her mother, Sasha Graham, the one she called Mother, wasn’t. Her chest filled with ice and a tremor trickled down her spine, and back up her neck to the nape. Thoughts floated amorphously through her mind, unanchored to any sense of reality.

  She glanced to the certificate again, a tangible reminder that something could exist amidst the lies all around her.

  No information regarding her father was recorded.

  The import of “Maiden” finally registered.

  Elowyn Graham was her mother. Maiden name, Graham. The same as hers, given from her father.

  Unless her father engaged in incest, Raymond Graham wasn’t her father, any more than Sasha was her mother.

  Her stomach surged like it wanted to disgorge the disgust with her lunch. She clamped her lips closed. She hurriedly put the file back together and shoved it into the safe. The others went back in order, the enigmatic Matthias on top.

  Kenzie closed the heavy door with a clang, uncaring if someone might hear. With a violent motion, she twisted the dial to reset the locks. The bench seat went back into its protective position, hiding the secrets her father kept. A single glance confirmed that everything appeared the same as when she entered.

  She fled to her room. The door slammed with a loud bang and a shudder in the floorboards. Kenzie lifted her arms, tilted her head back, and screamed her pain. She did it again. Rawness grasped at her vocal cords, made her stop.

  Sight rimmed with red, Kenzie called on her powers to complete a vision of the house turned to matchsticks, all the lies exposed, all the truths bleeding in the light. The magic blocked her, retreated like a scared animal, wouldn’t let her touch it. Kenzie redoubled her efforts, panting with her exertions, to no avail.

  The more she tried to destroy the house, the further power stepped back. Straining eyes rolled back into the top of their sockets took note of an emerald glow overtaking the red cast of her fury. Lucent and intense, the living color crept across the floor and flowed up the walls. Startled, Kenzie dropped her gaze down to observe the expanding rays. The glow touched her like a salve. A consciousness of her attempt to destroy the house around her, and immolate herself in the process, led her to lower her arms.

  The gemlike light receded like a tide. Kenzie tracked it, saw that it emanated from her closet.

  Her breath stuck in her throat. She rushed to the door, opening it with a snatch.

  Hidden at the back of the closet, below her dresses and behind the shoe rack, was the necklace from the Glade. Between her pair of white pumps and calf-tall brown leather boots, she could see the residual gleam within the gem. She removed the necklace from its hiding place. The stone weighed heavy in her hand, warm to the touch. The gleam disappeared.

  Kenzie turned it in her hand to catch the light. It sparkled as it always did. Normal, except missing a stone.

  Not normal, thought Kenzie. Magical, from the Glade.

  Her next thought was How dangerous is the necklace? and she wished she had never
removed it from the Glade. She turned it again. It glittered.

  Mitch likes it.

  She closed her eyes. Like a bath, there was a flow of magic around her. Now that she had lost her fury, she could access it. She threaded a tendril of the energy into the gem, which she could “see” with her eyes closed. The crystal resonated in her hand. Her eyes snapped open to see a spark in the depths of the jewel.

  So what do you do, exactly?

  She was staring into the clarity of the gem, seeking its secrets, when the thought struck her that nearly everything she knew was a lie, especially everything about her parents. Simultaneously with the thought came the realization that she knew where her mot— where Sasha had hidden the damn data.

  Chapter 47

  Hunter met Mitch in the garage, walking in with a small plastic bag in his hand.

  “Hey, yo,” he said, stepping around the various parts of the car strewn on the concrete floor. “I thought you had her running.”

  “She is, doing a little fine-tuning.” Mitch spied the bag. “That the gear?”

  “As requested. Are you going to let me in on all the details or what?” He held the bag out. “I tuned the initiator to the RFID. Will that work?”

  Nodding, Mitch took the sack from his friend. The initiator for the thermite was the biggest piece of equipment, about the size of his hand, mostly for the battery. The relay was the size of a deck of cards, and the RFID chip was in a small box, so it didn’t get lost. A remote control for the initiator, as mundane-appearing as a garage door opener, completed the set.

  Pulling the trigger out, he glanced at Hunter. “How hot?” The trigger was a boxy rectangle of metal. Two leads of black, insulated wire led to copper-tipped probes. A rubber band kept them from getting damaged by strapping them to the case.

  “Should hit six thousand degrees in less than a second. Going to make noise, though, when it jumps the gap.”

  “How long?”

  “It can sustain the drain for two seconds. If you don’t have the thermite set right or gap it wrong, you won’t get ignition.” Hunter eyed his friend. “So why electronic? A mag strip would be easier.”

  “Magnesium is too slow. I don’t want to give him any advanced warning.”

  Mitch walked to the workbench. He put the trigger down and, stooping, removed the ball of thermite from its hiding place. He undid the plastic wrap. Dragging over a dead piston that he’d replaced a month ago, he put it flat side down. He’d already pulled the wrist pin that connected the piston to the connecting rod. The open space resembled an open bowl with one edge of the arc cut down into half the depth.

  Mitch could feel Hunter staring over his shoulder. Using his fingertips, he molded the ball along the higher wall of the piston, creating a diagonal slope facing the open edge.

  “A shaped charge?”

  Mitch responded without looking up. “Not exactly, since the putty isn’t an explosive. Shaping it this way exposes a lot of surface area that will radiate at once. More flash than bang.”

  He poked his pinkie finger into the base of the putty, making a cavity. Onto either side of the cavity, he embedded an electrode, aligned so the tips pointed to each other with a millimeter of gap separating them. Some thermite pinched over them secured them into position. Mitch shuffled the tools on the bench and found a piece of thin cardboard. He tore a piece and placed it between the points.

  “Just in case,” he said.

  “Not sure that will stop it.” Hunter sounded dubious.

  Mitch grunted and said, “Pretty sure I don’t want to find out.” Using an entire roll of electrical tape, he attached the larger unit to the piston. He stood up straight and rolled his shoulders to work out the kinks. “Let’s see the rest of it.”

  The RFID chip was bigger than Mitch expected. He knew size-wise they could range from the diameter of a pepper flake to a system as big as a phone. He turned to Hunter. “Pretty big.”

  “Yeah, had to find a balance between size and function. I figured you wanted an internal power supply and a decent antenna. Both take up space. This gives you a hundred yards’ range to the relay. The relay can transmit burst signals up to two miles. The RFID activates on the first query it receives from the relay, so don’t turn on the relay until you’re ready to roll. After that, it will ping until the internal battery dies.”

  “That will work. What’s the freq and data identifier?”

  Hunter grinned. “I knew you were going to ask that.” He fished out a thumb drive. “The tech data is on there, including the broadcast frequency, the modulations, and coded nonsense into the data. You didn’t specify, but I got it built for ultrahigh frequencies to maximize range. That’s another reason it’s bigger than you expected.”

  “You didn’t hand-build it?”

  “Hell, no. Why should I when the stuff is available off the shelf?”

  Mitch fumed. “Because commercial stuff is traceable.”

  “This isn’t commercial, it’s military grade, and the person who tries to backtrack it to my Family will discover the same big blank you did.” Hunter’s surety annoyed Mitch, but the Rubieras obviously had serious resources. He dropped it and dipped his head to inspect the chip. The slender piece of sophisticated electronics had a switch built into the edge to turn it on and a slide switch on the opposite edge for the delay. He squinted while he thought, and moved the indicator down to fifteen seconds.

  That ought to be enough. Lassiter would want to verify the authenticity of the data as soon as he could, but short of bringing a computer into the meeting, he’d have to trust them. With, of course, his usual promise of blasting one or the other of them. Worse, Lassiter might try to take Kenzie hostage—not too outlandish a thought, since they’d already tried abducting her once.

  He asked idly, putting the chip down and picking up the relay, “So what does your dad do, anyway?”

  Silence greeted his question. Mitch glanced at Hunter, who met his stare with one of his own.

  “Let me guess,” said Mitch, “you’d tell me but then have to kill me.”

  “Not exactly.” Hunter twitched a couple of fingers on his right hand, and Mitch tensed. “But you can’t shoot your mouth off without thinking.” He paused to make sure his meaning was clear.

  Mitch gave a hard nod to acknowledge the warning. “I get it.”

  Hunter waited another second, and said, “My father owns banks.”

  “One isn’t enough?” joked Mitch, the words slipping out before his brain could issue a cautionary thought against flippancy.

  A frown creased Hunter’s brow. “Yes, more than one, private banks, that make the types of investments that are very profitable to preferred investors.”

  Mitch held his tongue this time, but inside the privacy of his mind, he recognized the distinction that his friend had drawn. The Rubieras were not interested in community banking and personal checking accounts. They were banksters, hidden from sight and, Mitch was willing to bet, from investigation. A wave of a hand and bank examiners would smile and issue a report of full compliance. A gesture to an investor and the family would have access to enormous assets, both monetary and intellectual.

  “Venture capital, too?”

  “Under the right circumstances, yes.”

  “So that’s why you’re in a school that focuses on tech instead of a fancy school that leads to Harvard and an MBA.”

  “It took a bit of arguing, but my father saw the value in having a person fully versed in both.”

  Mitch reassessed his friend. He looked the part of a son to a business scion, with the dark looks and preppy clothes. His demeanor conveyed the same, as though he were meant to lead. Still, there was an undercurrent of excitement that came out in the lab. Mitch faced Hunter. “You’d make a lousy accountant.”

  Annoyance showed in the folds at the corners of Hunter’s eyes. “Accountants work their little sums for others, people that are better at making the judgments to manage large enterprises. My father is one of those
, but he’s like everyone else that didn’t come of age with tech. He doesn’t understand the full ramifications of the tools we have today or the measure of control that can be exerted, but when I laid out the methods that we could utilize, he saw the potential.”

  “I’m not building stuff to control people,” argued Mitch. “There’s plenty that needs to be done to help people. Those tools for control should belong to the people using them, not some corporate tech company or their bank”—he used the first two fingers on each hand to add scare quotes—“act like kings in a castle ruling over them.”

  “That would be great, except the vast majority of people can’t fart without someone telling them what to do. Look around you. You see them, practically all of them are mouth-breathers and knuckle-draggers. Even in school, with a supposedly high-performing student body, we have our fair share of stupid kids. Probably three-quarters of the regular population could disappear, and the world wouldn’t notice.”

  “I told you that you are an asset. Your ability to identify patterns on limited data is special. If you had any sort of magical ability at all, I’d guess you were a Wilder. How many can process information like you and I do? With my Family, everyone operates at a high level of precision. In your family, what’s left of it—”

  Blood boiling, Mitch raised his fist. Hunter stepped back and put a hand out in front, tensing the fingers into a claw until the tendons popped out. Mitch’s shoulder and arm convulsed with cramped muscles. Grinding his teeth, he strove to drive the arm forward.

  “Stop acting like a fool,” Hunter said, sounding contemptuous toward Mitch’s straining effort. “You’ve seen enough by now to know what we can do. Or did you think that only your Kenzie girl was special.”

  The frozen muscles shrieked along nerve endings. Mitch ignored the signals. “She . . . is . . .special.” He forced the words out past the pain.

  “Maybe, but her Family isn’t any different than mine. The only thing the Families disagree over is when to implement a plan to put us in our rightful position. Or did you think that developing a means of increasing the power output of wizards was for some other benefit.” Hunter shook his head. “No, they plan for the same future. But they do so in bad faith, forgetting to include all the Families.” He scowled. “Not for the first time, either. They are very creative, even if undisciplined.” Hunter dropped his hand.