I walked slowly past the mansion, crossed the street, and circled past it again. My earpiece included a handy little camera, dumping a video recording to my phone. That night I returned to my apartment, copied the footage to my computer’s hard drive and reviewed it carefully, taking note of the location of cameras and floodlights and motion sensors. Then I went for an early morning shift at the catering company, helping to prepare several orders of pastries for the company’s clients. The cooks were grateful for the help.
After that, I hurried to EZClean and joined the crew sent for the weekly cleaning of McCade’s mansion. I pulled my hair back into a tight tail, and put a fake ring in my nose, a second in my right eyebrow, and another in each of my ears. I didn’t have any real piercings – they were too much of a liability in a fight – but they did a marvelous job of changing my appearance when necessary. It’s amazing how a few bits of jewelry and some makeup can change a face.
We drove a chemical-smelling van to the utility garage of McCade’s mansion. A half-dozen bored-looking security men in black suits awaited us, and despite their boredom, they went about their work with competence. They collected our phones, scanned each of us for weapons, and then made us sign the visitor log. Our crew boss then assigned tasks. Mopping the floor in McCade’s main art gallery and vacuuming his library were the least popular tasks, since damaging even one of Mr. McCade’s exhibits or rare books would result in a lawsuit.
Naturally, I volunteered.
That got me past the courtyard and into the gallery proper, a large hall with a gleaming hardwood floor, various objects of ancient art sitting upon pedestals. I made sure to do a good job of washing and polishing the floor to a mirror sheen while giving the various pieces of Roman, Egyptian, and Assyrian art a wide berth. Alas, the tablet that Morvilind wanted was not in the gallery.
I suppose that would have been too easy.
Once the gallery was done, I headed to the library. Two massive wooden doors opened off from the gallery and led to McCade’s library, which was the size of a small town’s public library. It had two floors connected by a spiral staircase with a gleaming brass railing, and many smaller rooms opened off the main library, holding rare books. One room had a collection of Mark Twain first editions, while a second held illuminated medieval manuscripts, and a third had a collection of vintage comic books from the 1950s. Glass cases displayed various artifacts and relics, but I saw no trace of the tablet Morvilind wanted.
I did, however, see a massive door like a bank vault on the far side of the library. I pushed the vacuum cleaner closer, rolling it over the thick carpet. A quick glance around confirmed that no one else was in the library. There were three cameras in the ceiling, and at least one of them would see me…but they couldn’t detect what I was going to do.
I kept one hand on the vacuum’s handle, but I gestured with me free hand, whispering under my breath as I focused my mind and summoned magical power, casting one of the spells that Morvilind had taught me. I worked the spell to sense the presence of magical forces, and I sensed nothing within the library.
But beyond the vault door…
I felt the buzzing, taut presences of several auras of potent magical power.
Well, well, well.
Morvilind was right. McCade liked to collect magical artifacts. An anonymous call to the Inquisition could get McCade into a lot of trouble, and perhaps I could grab the tablet in the chaos. On the other hand, it was likely that the Inquisition already knew about McCade and simply didn’t care. McCade’s company provided a lot of food for the High Queen’s campaigns, and McCade himself was friends with Duke Tamirlas and several other high Elven nobles. A man like him would have privileges that an ordinary subject of the High Queen would not, and if I stole the tablet, the Inquisition and Homeland Security might actually help him get it back.
No. Better to make the tablet disappear without any explanation.
I finished vacuuming the library and rejoined the rest of the crew in the courtyard. We did a quick turndown of McCade’s guest rooms, and then trooped back down to the utility garage. The security men checked us over one last time to make sure we hadn’t absconded with anything valuable, returned our phones, and bid us good day. We climbed back into the van and drove off. Most of the other workers focused upon their phones, checking their emails and messages, and few others leaned back and went to sleep. I looked out the van’s back windows, watching McCade’s mansion recede behind us, Lake Michigan like a sheet of rippled gray steel in the distance.
So I saw the man standing on the sidewalk, staring at the van.
He looked unremarkable – white, somewhere between thirty and forty, wearing athletic shoes, old jeans, a baggy hooded sweatshirt, and sunglasses. They were big sunglasses and not a bit stylish, the kind of sunglasses old people wore when they drove into the sun. Because of them, I couldn’t get a good look at his face.
But I was certain, absolutely certain, that he was scowling at the van.
That didn’t have to mean anything significant. Maybe he had used to work for EZClean Cleaners and had gotten fired. Maybe his ex-girlfriend was in the van. Maybe the van had almost hit him – I had noticed the crew boss sometimes exhibited an alarming indifference to pedestrians.
Or maybe he had noticed me looking around the mansion.
It was unlikely, but in my line of work a little paranoia is a good thing, so I memorized his features as best as I could.
###
My appointment, as it happened, was on Punishment Day.
Punishment Day happened once a week. In pre-Conquest days, criminals had been thrown into hellish prisons for decades, left to torture each other while the guards ignored them or actively participated. The High Queen took a different approach to disciplining her subjects, and the judges at the county, state, and federal levels carried out her will. Minor crimes received fines ranging from light to steep. Moderate crimes received public floggings, from twenty lashes to two hundred, sometimes accompanied by additional fines. Capital crimes were punished by death, whether by hanging or beheading. Those who could not afford their fines were sold into slavery, whether to an Elven noble or to one of the High Queen’s work gangs.
Every single punishment was recorded, and on Punishment Day, Homeland Security released the week’s videos on the Internet, to inspire the High Queen’s subjects to greater virtue by watching the shame of those who had broken the law.
When I got on the bus, most of the other passengers were hunched over their phones, watching this week’s crop of punishments. The most popular video this week was of an overweight nineteen-year-old boy from Oregon, the son of a state legislator who had insulted an Elven noble. For the crime of elfophobia, he had been sentenced to sixty lashes. His high-pitched, keening screams as he was tied to the post and flogged to unconsciousness sounded like a terrified little girl, and social media erupted with mockery and derision.
God, but I hated Punishment Day.
I knew I might be the one screaming with terror and agony in one of those videos someday, that I might have even worse in store for me. The thought of being that powerless made my stomach twist…and I didn’t have that much power to start. I looked at the other passengers on the bus, some of them laughing and joking as they watched the Punishment Day videos, and for a moment I hated them so much that I could barely keep my bored, sleepy expression in place.
Maybe that’s why I wasn’t a Rebel. I detested the Elves, but I didn’t like humans either.
Well. That, and Morvilind would kill me.
Thankfully, the bus soon reached my stop, and I yanked the yellow cord and got out, leaving the other passengers to their Punishment Day amusements. The bus deposited me near the airport, on a street with a massive rental car dealer on the north side and a row of industrial and office buildings on the south side. I wandered past the office buildings, hands in the pockets of my sweatshirt, my eyes darting back and forth as I watched for pedestrians. No one was on the sidewalks, and only a
few cars rumbled up and down the road.
I waited for a gap in the traffic, and then ducked into a windowless alley between two of the office buildings. The alley was deserted, save for a dumpster and a light scattering of trash. I took a deep breath, gathered magical power, and extended my right hand, silver light flashing around my fingers. I held the power for a moment, whispering the words of a spell in the Elven tongue as I focused my will, forcing the power to channel itself into my thoughts. The magic reached a crescendo, and I swept my hand before me, the silver light flaring up and down my body.
The Mask shimmered into existence around me.
The illusion changed my appearance. I stand only five foot three, so the spell made me appear six foot two. It made me look like a man instead of a woman. I had fashioned a Mask in the image of a middle-aged man, balding and slightly paunchy, clad in a white dress shirt, a black sport coat, black trousers, and black dress shoes. Anyone looking at me would see the image of the Mask, not me.
It was a useful spell.
Of course, like all useful things, Masking had limitations. I had to devote at least part of my mind to maintaining the illusion, or it would fall apart or develop obvious inconsistencies. No one would paid attention to a random middle-aged man, but people would notice if his clothes suddenly changed color or random body parts disappeared. It also took a continuous draw of magical power, and I couldn’t maintain it forever. Any wizard could detect the Mask easily enough, so it wasn’t a spell I could use against another wizard.
Yet when dealing with people who had no magical abilities, a Mask was exceedingly useful. My appointment was with a genius, but he dealt with computers, not spells. I had bought things a couple dozen times from him in the last few years, but he had no idea who I really was, or that I was even a woman. If he was ever arrested, the evidence on his servers would implicate my alias, not me.
I left the alley, strode along the sidewalks, and let myself into one of the office buildings. I headed down the hall until I came to a glass door with NILES RINGER COMPUTER SERVICES stenciled upon it. Beyond was a small waiting room stocked with old magazines and cheap folding chairs, and a bored receptionist playing a computer game involving pieces of fruit.
She looked up at me and managed a false smile. “Yes, sir?”
“Ernie Tesserman to see Mr. Ringer, please,” I said. The Mask disguised my voice. I was a soprano, but the Mask gave me the gravelly voice of a fifty-year-old man who had enjoyed a lot of cigarettes. “I should be his ten o’clock.”
“He’s expecting you,” said the receptionist, returning her attention to the fruit on her screen. “Go right in.”
I nodded, stepped past the desk, and opened the door.
Niles Ringer’s office looked more like a server room, with two rows of steel racks holding rows of humming black boxes covered in blinking green LEDs. Niles himself sat at his desk between the racks, its surface covered with half-assembled computers. He was the fattest man I had ever met, at least three hundred and fifty pounds, and even in the air-conditioned chill he had a faint sheen of sweat on his forehead. He looked harmless at best and ridiculous at worst, but he had been involved in various computer crimes since before I had been born, and he had never been caught. I was also pretty sure he had a variety of weapons hidden under the desk.
Niles looked up from his monitors as I approached, and a smile spread over his face.
“Ah,” he said. “Mr. Tesserman. My favorite customer. You always have such unusual requests.”
“That’s me,” I said in my Masked voice. “What about my last request? Can it…”
His phone rang. Niles lifted one thick finger and picked up his phone. I sighed with annoyance, folded my arms over my chest, and waited.
“Yes?” said Niles. “Why, yes, I am? What? No, no. I’m just pretending to talk on my phone.” I blinked. “I’m testing my new app.” He beamed and rotated his phone’s screen to face me. “You see?”
“I don’t,” I said.
“Well,” said Niles, “you know how sometimes you’re stuck in an annoying conversation and can’t get out of it? With my app, you can set a timer, and it fakes a phone call so you can get out of the conversation.”
“Charming.” I wondered what Morvilind would do if I tried that with him, and tried not to shudder at the thought. “So I can assume you don’t want my business?”
“Of course I want your business,” said Niles. “You always pay in cash, and there are never any…complications.”
“Complications are like hemorrhoids,” I said. “They’re bad.”
“And I’m familiar with both,” said Niles, shifting a bit in his seat.
“That,” I said, “was too much information. And not what I paid for.”
“You haven’t paid me yet,” said Niles.
I reached into a pocket of my sweatshirt and drew out an envelope, concentrating on my Mask to make sure it looked like Ernie had reached into the inner pocket of his sport coat. I tossed the envelope on the desk, and Niles drew out the neat little bundle of hundred-dollar bills inside. The High Queen’s face gazed out from the bills with aloof serenity.
“You don’t have to count it in front of me,” I said.
“Trust and openness make for a solid business relationship,” said Niles, counting the money. He nodded in satisfaction and then tucked the envelope away in a drawer. He then rummaged within the drawer for a moment, and drew out a small brown envelope.
“You were able to answer my questions?” I said.
“I was,” said Niles. “Took a bit of work, but I was able to track down the architectural firm that designed and constructed Paul McCade’s mansion. You know, I’m quite fond of McCade’s canned meat product. It’s really good on a toasted bun with some cheese and mayo.”
“That sounds like a heart attack,” I said. “And the second thing?”
“A copy of the invitation to his Conquest Day gala?” said Niles. “Got that, too. Or the file template and the holographic watermark, anyway. You’ll have to find a high-end printer and print out the invitation yourself. I’m not having any physical evidence here. Speaking of which…”
He gestured with the brown envelope, and I took the envelope and opened it, part of my concentration focused on my Mask. Within the envelope was a small black thumb drive, and a slip of paper with a long string of letters and numbers.
“That’s the encryption key to access the drive,” said Niles. “Don’t lose that paper. It’s the only copy of the key. I didn’t even keep one.”
“No physical evidence,” I said, returning the drive and the paper to the envelope. “And no files left on your servers.”
“Precisely,” said Niles. “Though of course I do not operate any unlicensed server-class computer systems, and have never once considered breaking the law for any reason whatsoever.”
“Nor have I,” I said, lying just as much as he was.
Niles waved a thick hand at me. “But everything you need is on the drive. The blueprints, and the template file for the invitation. Just make sure you find a printer that can do the holographic code on the bottom.”
“Thank you,” I said. “Always a pleasure during business with you.”
I turned to go.
“One other thing,” said Niles.
I turned again, fighting down a stab of irritation. Turning while Masked was always extra work.
“What, do you want more money?” I said.
“I wouldn’t object,” said Niles, “but you need to know something. There’s a blank spot on the plans.”
I made my Masked face scowl. “You charged me for incomplete blueprints?”
“Of course not,” said Niles. He leaned forward, his chair giving an alarming creak. “Those are the complete blueprints. There’s just a large blank space in the center of the mansion, which means…”
“Which means McCade built part of his house off the books,” I said. I was certain that when I looked at the plans, the blank spot would cor
respond with the vault door in his library.
“Yeah,” said Niles. “If you’re getting involved with a guy like Paul McCade, you should be careful. He has a bad reputation.”
“Did you get food poisoning from a McCade canned meat product?” I said.
“The stuff tastes better than it sounds,” said Niles. “But that’s not the point. In certain illegal circles, shall we say, McCade has a bad reputation. He likes to buy up stolen artwork and relics, and I’ve heard a rumor that he even does business with Rebel cells.”
“That seems unlikely,” I said, though not even Morvilind had been certain if McCade dealt with Rebels. “The Inquisition doesn’t screw around with Rebels. If a rich guy like McCade started doing business with a Rebel cell, the Inquisition would kill him and stick the video up on Punishment Day. ”
“The Inquisition is fearsome, but not omniscient,” said Niles. “That’s how men like you and I are in business. And a man like McCade has many friends in Homeland Security and the Elven nobility, which means he has space to do things quietly.” He shrugged. “Do as you wish. But you’re a reliable customer, and I would hate to lose the income stream.”
I laughed. “You’re getting sentimental.”
“A weakness of mine,” he said. “Do take care. But bear in mind that if you get arrested, I’ve never met you.”
“Same goes,” I said, waved goodbye, and walked out of his office. The receptionist did not look as I passed, and I left the office and headed into the street. Part of my attention maintained the Mask, but the rest of my mind chewed over what Niles had told me. Was McCade a Rebel? Or was he working with them? I didn’t care about the Rebels and their mad plans to overthrow the High Queen, but I needed to get that stupid tablet for Morvilind and get out alive. It would be a lot harder to do that if I walked into some murky political intrigue. I muttered curses under my breath as I walked, venting my anger at Morvilind, at McCade, at the Elves, and the whole damned world.
Cloak Games: Omnibus One Page 5