by M. R. Forbes
"Elevator's over there," I said. There was an office directory between the two sets of doors. It only had eight names on it. RoGen was listed by itself on the third floor.
We got in and rode up in silence.
The elevator stopped. The doors opened. I had no expectations.
I was still taken by surprise.
There was nothing. No desks, no cubes, and no people. There wasn't even a sign hanging anywhere with the company name on it. Just a large, blank room, with a soft blue carpet and windows ringing the perimeter.
"Another trick?" Gervais said. "I didn't think the flying monkeys had it in them."
I looked around the room.
"No, I don't think it was a trick." The light was streaming in through the windows, showing that the carpeting was still slightly compressed in some places. "Something heavy was sitting in that corner. There was a desk over there. Someone used to be in this office, and they only left recently."
"Bah. It doesn't matter, diuscrucis. Everything is gone. We should be, too. Focus on what we can find, not what is missing. If RoGen was here, they dismantled it."
It couldn't be a coincidence that the company had vanished. Was the whole thing a front to the work Matthias Zheng had been doing? Either way, Gervais was right. There was no point for us to delay here, especially since checking the RoGen office had been a target of opportunity, not the main reason we'd made the trip. Part of me was hoping the angels were somehow watching us in secret, and that they knew we had stopped by. Maybe they would think we'd reached the end of the trail and smashed hard into their wall.
Maybe this time, we could catch them by surprise.
"We need to find a way into the Lab that won't attract too much attention," I said.
Gervais morphed back into his true form. "Leave that to me."
The maliciousness of his smile gave me chills.
CHAPTER THIRTY
Of course, you could only get so close to the Lab without proper credentials. The entire site had a secure perimeter to prevent against potential terrorist threats, and was managed through three guarded vehicle entrances. That meant that in order to get onto the site, we would need a badge. To locate and gain access to whatever facility Zheng had been stationed in would take a bit more than that.
It was the reason I was sitting in the Fabulous 50s Diner with Rose.
It was the reason we had spent the last three hours waiting there.
It was the reason Gervais wasn't with us.
I didn't tell Rose what the demon was up to. I didn't need to. It was obvious that there was only one way we were going to get into the Lab, and it wasn't a pretty one. She was handling it. Not well. Well enough. I'd brought him along because I thought he would be useful. This was his big chance.
"He left two hours ago," Rose said. "What the hell is taking him so long?"
She'd been edgy since he had excused himself from our table and made his move, leaving the diner and returning a few seconds later, morphed into a really, really handsome muscle type. We'd watched him approach a very plain looking woman in a linen suit who was wearing a LANL badge. We had overheard her talking to the waitress about how she had to work overtime today, and had just taken a break for some of their delicious pie.
His charm and pheromones had gone to work, and they had left together not long after. The demon had winked at Rose on the way by, causing her to bring her napkin up to her face and start choking, trying to hold down the vomit. I was sure he had gotten a great kick out of that.
"Knowing him, he's trying to make you squirm," I said. Her foot was tapping a fast rhythm on the floor, and while I'd ordered and eaten four pieces of cherry pie in the last two hours, her first was still untouched. "It's working."
She tried to calm her foot. It was still for about five seconds, and then started smacking against the table again, shaking up the silverware.
"Another?" our waitress, Cathy, said, stopping by to check on us for the four hundredth time. She was a grandma type, plump and grey and full of spunk. She picked up my empty plate.
"Why not?" I said. "Maybe a different flavor this time. Do you have pecan?"
"Sure do, sweetie." She glanced over at Rose's pie. "You might as well eat hers, too. Can I get you something else, dear?"
Rose looked up at her and shook her head. "No. Thanks. I'm fine."
Cathy's eyes caught mine for just a second, and she turned away. "One piece of pecan pie, and I'll grab you a warm up on your coffee." She headed off.
The door to the diner opened, and the woman in the linen suit walked in.
"He's here," I said.
Rose closed her eyes and inhaled, clenching her lips. Trying not to get sick again.
Gervais sat down next to me. Across from Rose.
"How do I look?" he asked. He stared at her and smiled, then morphed back to himself.
"Enough," I said. I shifted and found Cathy. "Excuse me. I'm sorry, can you cancel the pie? Just the check, please."
She smiled and nodded, and a minute later we had the check.
"How do you pay for anything?" Gervais asked me. "You don't have any rich sympathizers to support you."
I pulled the same bit of plastic that had been Obi's badge and put it with the bill, changing it as my hand went from my pocket to the table. I had spent some time in prison once for identity theft. After Dante had brought me back, I had sworn I wouldn't get back into that business.
It was one promise I hadn't been able to keep. My expenses were light, and I tried to do it as little as possible, but sometimes I needed some quick liquidity. I figured it was a fair price for humanity to pay. In any case, Elyse payed the rent on the apartment, using the millions she had inherited after she killed her father. Money the rest of her Nicht Creidem family was still trying to get back from their former leader's deserter of a daughter.
"You aren't the only one with tricks," I said, handing everything over to Cathy. "Do you have what we need?"
"I have what I need. Ah, yes. I also have the badge, and the brain. Her name is Sarah, if you can believe that. Sarah Mitchell. She's in procurement."
"Procurement?" Rose asked.
"She places the materials orders for the scientists."
Cathy came back with the card. I signed us out, leaving her a nice tip. "Any materials we would be especially interested in?"
He tapped his skull. "Not in here, but I can get us into her computer. She has decent access to the rest of the network. I trust our Rose can do the work from there?"
"What's the matter, are computers too advanced for you?" Rose asked.
"No. I just like to have the underlings handle the menial tasks."
"Can we just go?" I said.
CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE
The badge got us past the armed guards and through the vehicle access point, though there was a minute of tension while Sarah/Gervais explained why he had two guests with him. It was the moment at which his unique abilities proved themselves, because without his victim's memories and intimate knowledge of process and procedure at the Lab, we would have never gotten in.
"Did you doubt me?" he said. "I never doubted myself."
We were riding in Sarah's car, a late model Ford with an 'I love science' bumper sticker on the back fender. I had changed into a standard black suit for the occasion and we had picked up similar business formal attire for Rose before we drove over. She looked pretty good dressed down. She looked even better in the white blouse and skirt, with her hair pinned up and wearing a pair of low magnification reading glasses.
"I'm sure you must have doubted yourself when Sarah killed you," I said.
"Not really."
He pulled into a large parking lot and stopped near the center, in a numbered space that matched the sticker on Sarah Mitchell's car. We got out and followed him to what I assumed was an administration building - a very normal looking concrete and glass structure. He swiped the badge at the door and pulled it open.
"Ladies first," he said, waving Ros
e through. She glared at him as she passed.
We took the elevator up to the third floor. The place was deserted save for a janitor who was vacuuming the carpets in the hall. Gervais gave her a warm hello and led us down a corridor to an office near the middle of the space. It was small and windowless, with a simple desk and workstation, a file cabinet, and a few photos hanging on the walls. One was of Sarah, with a man I could only assume was her husband and their two children. It was a hard one to look at, but I forced myself to do it.
There were always victims. There were always casualties. The day I felt nothing about them was the day I became the Beast.
Rose must have noticed, because she took my hand and squeezed it. I knew it wasn't easy for her either, so I returned the favor.
"Aww, how cute," Gervais said. "Rose, if you would." He motioned to the desk chair. She went over and sat behind the workstation.
"Username and password?" she said, turning on the monitor.
"Sarah period mitchell, all lowercase. 'Love my kids', lowercase, all one word." The demon stood behind her, looking over her shoulder. I stayed on the other side of the desk, giving her space to work.
"It didn't work," Rose said.
Gervais smiled. "No? Try, 'I'm dead because of you'. Again, lowercase, all one word."
We both shot him a dirty look.
"What's the damn password, you asshole?" Rose snapped.
"M-X-Y-Z-T-P-L-K-1-9-4-4. All lowercase."
She typed it in. "Now what?"
"Go down to the menu and click on 'eProcure'," the demon said. "Do a search for Zheng."
"Nothing," she replied a few seconds later.
"Hmm. Sarah didn't know what department Zheng was working in."
Rose typed something in. "Here's a list of orders for robotics," she said. Gervais leaned in, putting his face close to hers. She tried to angle herself further away from it.
"Standard parts, I think. Try searching on orders from RoGen."
"Nothing."
Gervais growled impatiently. "This might take all night."
"We don't have all night," I said. "Is there a way to get a list of departments?"
Rose looked at Gervais, who walked her through the steps.
"Anything promising?" I asked.
"Everything has a department number and a title," Rose said. "Mechanical engineering, biology, those are fine. This one," she pointed at the screen. "Classified. This one, too. There are three listed that way."
She clicked a few times, scanned the screen, clicked a few more times.
"Do you know the password to get into the screens for these departments?" she asked Gervais.
He shook his head. "No. She didn't have access. Find another way."
"Just like that? Just find another way?" she snapped. "No password, no entry. We can try to brute force it, but that will take all night."
I turned to Gervais. "You don't have anything else that can help?"
He tapped his index finger on his chin and closed his eyes. Then he smiled again. "Personnel records. Maybe we can find out who has the highest security clearance."
"Great. Then what?"
"Then I don't know. You have power. Can't you use it to get a password from their computer?"
"Just like that?" I asked. "I know it looks like magic, but it has limitations."
Rose twisted so I could see her past the monitor. "Wait. You can affect things on an atomic level, right? Do you think you'd be able to tell which keys had been hit the most frequently on a keyboard?"
I thought about it. "I might. How will that help?"
"It might not. These workstations are set to lock down after sixty seconds of inactivity. That means any time the person went to a meeting, got up to use the bathroom, got distracted by a phone call - they'd need to put their password in again."
"So the most worn keys are probably used in the password?"
"Yeah. It will still take a little time to get in because we have to try the combinations, but not as much as using the whole range of alphanumerics."
"Not as dumb as you look," Gervais said. "It may be the best approach."
"Okay. Check the personnel records."
She leaned back and starting typing and scrolling again.
"I got an org chart. Top floor, corner office. Nathan Rogers. Director of Special Operations."
"That sounds promising," I said. "What's his birthday?"
"June sixteenth, 1969."
We abandoned Sarah Mitchell's office, heading back down the hall to the elevator. Gervais swiped the badge, and we moved up to the tenth floor.
It was indistinguishable from the third floor, at least from the hallway. The same neutral carpeting, the same off-white walls. We walked all the way down to Nathan Roger's office. The door was locked. Opening it was trivial.
"It's good to be the king," Gervais said, leading us in.
The office was massive, surrounded by full length windows that provided a great view out to the rest of the complex. A leather couch sat close to the door, while a private conference table and whiteboard rested on a slightly raised floor near the window, opposite a dark wood desk. Like Sarah, Nathan kept photos of his family on prominent display. A large one of his wife on one side of the desk, and another of his labrador on the other side.
I sat down behind the workstation, closing my eyes and casting the energy out. As with Cheryl Paulson, I let it sink onto the keyboard while I focused on it, running my mind over it and picking it apart molecule by molecule.
I couldn't see the wear on the keys. Instead, I had an innate sense of it, a subatomic topography. The 'e' key was the most warn, and had the greatest buildup of oils on it. The 's' key, the 'g', the 'q', the 'u', the '1', the '7', the '9'. I rattled them off to Rose, who wrote them down on the board.
"I think that's it," I said, opening my eyes. I looked over at the letters and numbers.
"Clearly a man of great intelligence," Gervais said. "He very obviously used at least part of his birthday in the password."
Rose nodded. "And only four letters are especially warn. I'm not so sure about 'e' though. That's the most popular letter in the English language."
"How do we know if a letter is used more than once in the password?" Gervais said.
"We don't," I replied. "We just have to try them. Let's start simple, and work our way up."
Rose took over at the computer, while I worked with Gervais to start outputting combinations of letters and dates. The number of possibilities was still quite large, though the demon seemed be able to create and track them with no amount of effort.
It took an hour to come to 'squeegee61669'. In the end, it was the 'q' and 'u' that helped us narrow it down. We made the assumption they went together, and if they were together that the password was an actual word, and not a random combination. I was amazed by Gervais' knowledge of the english language. It was as though he had a dictionary in his head.
"Check 'eProcure' first," I said, once Rose was in. I wandered over to the doorway at the same time, making sure we were still alone. We were.
"Landon, I think I have something," she said a few minutes later.
"What is it?"
"The 'classified' titles are gone. One of them is called Project Fog."
"As in, Fist of God?"
She smiled. "I think so. I'm inside the shipping system. There are dozens of deliveries here. Looks like part numbers and abbreviated descriptions. I can't make out most of them, but it seems one is for a laser engraving machine."
"A machine like that wouldn't be able to make scripture small enough," I said.
"An early effort," Gervais said.
"Anyway, that's not the most interesting part. There are a ton of imports. There's one export, out to Shenzhen, China. Get this, the listed contents are two workstations, a 3d printer, and a 'project prototype'." She did the air quotes for effect.
"Does it say who it was delivered to?"
"Hang on." Her eyes followed her scroll. "Here it is.
Some place called THI."
I felt my heart bang against my chest. "Taylor Heavy Industries."
"You know it?"
"The founder, Rachel Taylor, was a friend of mine. She was Touched. THI is a subsidiary of Taylor Enterprises, a publicly traded company whose shareholders indirectly include the Vatican, among other wealthy Christian entities."
"Oh. Do you think she knows anything about this?"
I shook my head, feeling an old wound threatening to reopen. "I doubt it. She's dead."
Her lips formed a thin line across her mouth. "I'm sorry."
"Me, too."
"At least we got something out of this trip," Gervais said.
"Let's see if we can get more. Rose, can you find out where Project Fog was being developed? I have a hard time believing that the United States government was funding angelic research, which means that there are probably other engineers here who worked on parts of it besides Zheng, and who didn't know who or what it was they were actually doing the work for. They may have left evidence on their workstations. Blueprints, research notes, that kind of thing."
"Sure. Just one second, I can see which building the incoming orders were delivered to." She starting tapping the keys for a second, and then stopped. Her head turned towards the window on her right. "Landon. Oh, shit. We've got company."
CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO
I threw my power out towards the window, even as the trio of angels swooped in and through it, sending shattered glass pouring into the room. I clenched my jaw, using the energy to catch it, to keep it from exploding onto Rose.
She pushed the chair backwards, rolling away from the desk, and at the same time ripping open the top of her blouse and tearing her cursed dagger away from its hiding place beneath her breasts.
The glass fell to the ground in a neat line.
The angels straightened up.
"You must be the diuscrucis," one of them said, looking down at the glass. He stepped forward. "My name is Abraham."
"Abraham, there are only three of you here," I said.