Joss the Seven

by J. Philip Horne

  Mara nodded.

  “But you don’t know his name. How do you know he’s hunting me if you don’t even know his name?”

  Mara shrugged. “You sort of get used to it, Joss. The Guild holds information closely. I don’t hear much beyond what I need to know, and you won’t either. Sorry. Here’s what I do know. He’s supposedly getting closer. We need to start fighting back before he tracks you down.”

  I shook my head. What was I supposed to do? I didn’t want some evil crime guy coming by the house looking for me. I had to do what I could to stop him. “So what’s the plan? What exactly do you want me to do?”

  “Should be straight forward. You’ll ghost and blend through the building. Stay blended the whole time so you don’t show up on security video. Then you grab a hard drive out of a laptop, and come back out.”

  “Ah. That kind of files, “ I said. “Why not just take the whole laptop?”

  “Too big,” Mara said. “It would hamper your movements too much if you had to keep the laptop flattened against you while ghosting through a wall. But the hard drive shouldn’t be a problem. We have some special clothes you’ll wear to hold stuff right up against your body. We’ll gear you up tomorrow night when we pick you up.”

  “Tomorrow night?”

  “Yeah. We’ll pick you up around 1:00 in the morning,” Mara said. She frowned. “What’s wrong? You worried?”

  Betrayed by my face. I was worried. And scared. I’ve done some crazy pranks in my time, but I’d never just strolled in and stolen something. Not really. Not where the cops would get involved if I was caught.

  “Hey,” Mara said, “we get this hard drive, and we might be able to take down a real bad guy. This is what we’ve trained you for.”

  “Yeah, I’m good,” I said, ignoring the ice in my stomach. “1:00. How long will this take?”

  “Maybe a thirty minutes round trip drive to the location, and less than thirty minutes to grab the hard drive. I’d say we’ll have you back in bed by 2:00.”

  “Alright. I can lose an hour of sleep.”

  Mara put the laptop on the mat between us. “Good. Today’s lesson is going to focus on ripping hard drives out of laptops, as well as the mission ops plan.”

  I sat facing her. I learned.

  At 12:53, I got out of bed and slipped on my shoes. I’d gone to bed dressed in jeans and a T-shirt after my shower. For two hours I’d lain there, adrenaline pumping through my veins and sleep an impossibility. Enough waiting and thinking. It was time for action. My first mission for the Guild.

  Troublesome thoughts kept popping up. What did I know about the Guild? Was I just going to jump when they said jump? Did I really know who “they” were? And why did my parents want to keep me away from the Guild?

  I yearned to know the answer to that last question, but feared that asking it might ruin everything. I loved training at Battlehoop. I had come to terms with my freaky powers over the past six weeks. I didn’t want my parents to shut me off from all that, and yet, I needed something. Their understanding.

  All were questions for another time. I stepped to the back wall of my room and ghosted into it. I drifted over and leaned my head forward out the far side of the brick exterior wall so I could keep myself oriented. I still had trouble drifting blind. I blended in case anyone was up and saw my backside sticking into the house, and drifted down to the ground level.

  I kept the blend going as I stepped out of the wall and jogged around to the side yard. The side yard fence had a gate in it, but I kept jogging and ghosted right through it. I could snap into ghost mode now.

  At the sidewalk in front of our house, I looked toward the mouth of the cul-de-sac and saw Jordan’s BMW silhouetted in the moonlight. I jogged over to the car and released my blend. The passenger door swung open and Mara hopped out.

  She pushed a black bundle toward me. “Your work clothes. Change quickly. We need to move.”

  I glanced around. “Where?”

  “What have you been teaching him?” Jordan’s voice came from the dark interior of the car.

  Mara’s eyes narrowed for a moment when Jordan spoke. “Just blend. We won’t see you.”

  “But I thought the clothes had to be on me to blend with me.”

  “Correct. The clothes will come in and out of view, depending on how close they are to you, but you’ll stay out of sight. Hurry.”

  That actually made sense. I blended and stripped my clothes off down to my underwear and socks. Mara picked up my clothing as I dropped it and stacked it in a neat pile with my shoes.

  The ‘work’ clothes Mara had given me included a black shirt and pants made from a heavy, stretchy material. There was also a tight, stretchy pair of boots that zipped up the front, had a split between the big toe and other toes, and had rubberized soles. I was going to look ridiculous, or incredibly cool.

  Something poked me as I pulled on the pants. I stretched open a pocket on the left pant leg and found a multi-head screwdriver and a multi tool with pliers. On the right side a pocket held a sheathed fixed-blade knife with a good five-inch blade. Was that supposed to be a tool, or a weapon?

  Fully dressed, I let go of the blend. Mara gave me a quick once over and nodded. “That should do it. Into the car.”

  I scrambled into the back seat. It wasn’t large, and the driver seat was set way back to give Jordan room. The interior of the car smelled like leather. I buckled in behind the passenger seat as Mara got back in. Jordan pushed a button, the engine hummed, and we were off.

  “Stay low, Joss,” Jordan said. “The windows are tinted dark enough it shouldn’t matter, but you have to learn to not take risks. The front windshield is clear, and I don’t want a traffic cam getting a look at you.”

  I hunched low behind Mara’s seat. My stomach started clenching. What had I gotten myself into?

  “Here,” Mara said, and her hand thrust toward me holding something black. I took it and held it up in the flashes of light as we drove under street lights. It was a ski mask-looking hood made of the same material as the shirt and pants, with holes cut out for the eyes, nostrils, and mouth. “Go ahead and put it on.”

  I pulled it on, and struggled with it for a minute to get the holes lined up comfortably with the associated body parts. I noticed I wasn’t seeing Jordan’s bald scalp in the dark interior. He was wearing a mask, too.

  “There’s a couple pockets in the front of your shirt, and a couple in the back that can be used to stash the hard drive,” Mara said. “When we get to the building, you’re going to blend and then ghost out of the car. Security cameras will just see a BMW parked on a side street. You won’t exist.”

  “And I blend the whole time, right?”

  “Right,” Mara said. Her voice sounded odd. Deeper.

  I sat up to get a better look. From the silhouette of her head, it wasn’t Mara anymore. “What the—”

  “Quiet,” Mara said. “And get back down. It’s me, Mara. I shifted to a persona I use for work.”

  I took a hard look. She’d shifted her face to look like some little man. The rest of her that I could see looked the same. I hadn’t known she could do that.

  “Wow,” I said, slouching once again. “Talk about getting your game face on.”

  “Cute,” Mara said.

  “So who are you supposed to be?” I asked.

  “Nobody. That’s the point. This is a man’s face I made up and use for work.”

  “Shifters can do that?”

  I caught the movement of Mara shaking her head as we passed under a street light. “No, most can’t.”

  “And you only shift your head?”

  “Yeah. If I shift all of me, the clothes would shift with me, right? So I’d look like a man, all right, and you’d see far more than you wanted to.”

  “That is so weird. And I don’t get it,” I said. “What’s the point of all this if security camera gets a picture of your license plate, Jordan? Won’t they know it’s you?”

  “What
makes you think my plates are the ones on the car?” Jordan said.

  Oh. I didn’t have anything else to say, so I shut up. We drove in silence to the outskirts of downtown. The streets weren’t empty, but it was close. A stray car or two shot by as though they had important places to go in the middle of the night. Jordan pulled to the curb and stopped next to a hulking building that was shrouded in darkness.

  Mara turned to face me. “You’ve got this, Joss. What floor is the target?”

  “Fourth floor,” I said. “Polypotel Industries International.”

  “Good. What office number?”

  “Is that a trick question? There’s no office number. It’s the office of the CEO.”

  “That’s right,” Mara said. “Remember, keep your blend going the whole time. Move as little as possible. We don’t want security guards seeing a video feed of a laptop jumping around in an empty office.”

  “Right,” I said. My heart beat a staccato rhythm against my ribs, and my mouth was dry.

  “Don’t screw up,” Jordan said, still staring straight forward.

  “Words to live by,” I said, and blended.

  “He’s off,” Mara said as I ghosted and stepped out of the locked car.

  I walked toward the building, holding onto my blend. The building loomed a dozen stories or more in the dark above, but the street level was well lit near the main entrance on the corner of the building. I ghosted through the glass door, and walked with careful steps across the lobby.

  A night guard sat at a desk to the side of the lobby. His feet were propped on a small desk, and he was reclined as far as the chair would allow, with a slack look on his face as he stared up at the ceiling. He wasn’t asleep, but I didn’t think he was fully awake either.

  The shoes Mara had given me were amazing. They were comfortable and silent. The rubber soles gripped well but didn’t squeak. I’d thought I would have to drift down into the floor a bit so I could silently ghost across the lobby. Instead, I ninja-stepped my way right past the guard.

  I found the fire escape map posted on the wall near the elevators. It directed me around a couple of corners to a hallway with bathrooms. Opposite the bathrooms was a heavy, locked door with a STAIRS sign in red letters above it. I stepped through the door into the stairwell.

  I had thought a lot about this lying in bed earlier. I could try to drift in a wall up to the fourth floor, but I didn’t really know much about how buildings like this worked. Were the walls solid and thick? Were there gaps between floors? Did the walls align floor to floor? Much simpler to take the stairs.

  The stairwell was lit with fluorescent bulbs above the door I’d just passed through and at the landing a dozen steps above me. I headed up the stairs, hit the switchback and went another dozen steps to a landing with a door labeled FLOOR 2.

  On the landing in front of the fourth floor door, I stopped to catch my breath. I was surprised to realize I wasn’t winded. Blending was getting a lot easier for me, but still took real effort. And running up stairs used to exhaust me. All the training at Battlehoop was making a difference. I was getting tough. Strong. And I was stalling.

  For weeks I’d felt like I was being pulled along by events. I had these talents, so I had to train, so I could become this bizarre ninja-magic-dude, so I could blah blah blah. But why should I care? If the Mockers were harming the Guild, why did that matter to me? My parents didn’t even want me in the Guild. And why did my thoughts keep going in circles?

  But as I’d trained, something had changed. I liked being part of a team, of feeling like I could do something bigger than me. Something good. And Bobby Ferris still haunted me. I felt bad for him. I’d been so angry at him for so long, I wasn’t quite sure what to do about it. And I had used my powers selfishly. I hated thinking of myself that way. Time to do something good. Something for the team.

  FLOOR 4. The sign on the door was to the point. I could do this. I could go through that door, and do my part to take down a Mocker.

  Heart racing, I ghosted through the door.

  Chapter 11

  POLYPOTEL INDUSTRIES

  I STEPPED INTO a poorly lit hallway. One in four light fixtures did night duty, emitting clinical fluorescent light along with a faint buzz. Vague colors and frigid AC completed what Dad called the office zombie garden.

  I had to find the CEO’s office. I could just start ghosting through walls, but I had this terrifying vision of accidentally ghosting right out of the building. I wasn’t sure what would happen if I fell four stories while ghosting, and I had no intention of finding out.

  Instead, I turned and followed the hall a short distance past some restrooms to the floor’s elevator lobby. Six silver doors stood three to a side. Opposite me was a glass wall with POLYPOTEL INDUSTRIES INTERNATIONAL stenciled across two large glass doors. Behind the wall lay a barren office lobby. A badge reader with a red light stood on the wall beside the doors.

  I ghosted through the glass and started looking. It didn’t take long. The executives weren’t subtle. One huge section at a corner of the building had its own reception area behind more glass walls and several offices framed with stained wood and etched glass doors.

  I stepped through the glass and walked along the near wall, checking the office doors. Each door had a name and job title. It seemed like everyone had a three letter job that started with C and ended with O. The door closest to the corner had an E in the middle. The CEO.

  I frowned. Was there a faint glow coming through the frosted glass of the door? I stretched my neck for a moment to loosen the tension, took a deep breath, and stepped through the door.

  The office was large. Windows reached from the floor to the ceiling along the walls ahead of me and to the left. Lots of details assaulted me, but only one stood out. A man sat hunched over a laptop at the desk directly across the office from me, typing furiously.

  I froze. What was he doing here in the middle of the night? His tie was loosened, and the top button on his white dress shirt was unbuttoned. A dark coat was neatly laid out to the side of the laptop on the large, wood desk. A lamp with a narrow, green shade sat on the corner of the desk and cast a pool of light. The glow of the laptop revealed a frown of concentration on the man’s face. The only sound was the rapid clicking of keys as he typed.

  He jerked upright in his chair and slapped the desk. I jumped, but he never looked at me. He rubbed his face with both hands and stared intently at the laptop’s screen. The laptop that held the hard drive I was supposed to take. What was I going to do? I looked around for inspiration, but nothing came to mind. I stepped backward through the door behind me.

  Back in the reception area, I took a deep breath. No problem. My blending was in full effect. He wasn’t going to catch me. I just needed to get him out of that office. There were a couple of black leather chairs and a couch in the middle of the space, so I went over to them and flopped into the couch to think. The cushions made a whooshing sound as I hit them. I winced and held my breath, hoping the CEO hadn’t heard the noise.

  Or, maybe that was exactly what I wanted. I hopped up and pulled one of the chairs over to the glass door at the entrance to the executive area. I pushed open the door and then pulled the chair halfway through and left it holding the door open. Hopefully that would get his attention. Now I needed to draw him out of his office.

  I glanced around the room. A coffee maker sat on a counter on the far wall opposite the offices. I ran over to it, grabbed the glass carafe, and headed back to the CEO’s office door. I ghosted and leaned through the door. He was back to typing on the laptop. I pulled back out of the door and raised the carafe.

  Once I threw it, there was no turning back. I could feel it in the fear coiled around my stomach like an icy spring, and in the prickles of heat in my scalp. No turning back.

  The carafe hit the floor in the middle of the room with a satisfying crash, shattering into tiny shards of glass confetti. I turned and stepped through the office door. The CEO surged to his fee
t, his eyes wide, and raced toward me. My breath caught in my throat and I dove to the side, landing in a shoulder roll.

  He never glanced my way. He grabbed the handle and yanked the door open. A moment later he was through the door and gone. I jumped to my feet and ran to the desk, where the laptop waited. Mara’s advice came to mind as I reached for it. Move stuff around as little as possible. We don’t want security guards seeing a video feed of a laptop floating around in an empty office.

  I thought of the chair, the carafe. Well, that ship had sailed. I glanced through the open door, but didn’t see the CEO in the narrow slice of the room beyond in view. I slammed the screen closed and flipped the laptop over. Multitool and screwdriver in hand, I located the hard drive.

  When Mara and I had practiced, it had been so easy. Three or four screws and the hard drive was out. Now, the tiny screws swam in my vision as I tried to get the sharp tip of the screwdriver aligned. I looked up. Still no CEO. How long did I have? I looked back down at the laptop and frowned in concentration. What demented fool had thought little fairy screws were a good idea?

  The first screw finally came out. Three to go. A drop of sweat dripped off the tip of my nose through the hole in my mask and landed on the desk beside the laptop. I glanced up again. Still nothing. I attacked the second screw. Seconds slipped by before the screwdriver grabbed the slots in the teeny screw and it came loose. The third screw behaved properly and came right out. One to go.

  A voice drifted in through the open door. “… telling you, I want our head of security down here immediately!”

  He was coming back. My hands wouldn’t behave, and I couldn’t get that last screw out. The hard drive moved a bit as I bumped it with the screwdriver. In desperation, I pulled my knife out of its pocket and jammed it into the crack on the side with both screws already out. I wiggled it deeper and leaned into it to lever the hard drive out.

  For a moment, everything froze as I strained with the effort. Then a sharp crack of splintering plastic accompanied the hard drive popping out of the laptop. I stuck my tools and knife back into their pockets, picked up the hard drive, and dropped down behind the desk just as the CEO stormed back into the room. I was still blending, but I didn’t want him to see parts of a laptop appearing to float around in the air.