by Elise Kova
“And to do that, you need to be in this fortified area?”
“What else?” Jo grinned.
It looked as if Wayne was trying to fight his own grin, but he failed. “We should get to work, then.”
They promptly finished lunch—and it was one of the best lunches she’d had in a long time (ever, really, if she didn’t count her mother’s cooking). It was almost too good to skip out on the check. Almost. But she didn’t have any means to pay even if she wanted to—which was frustrating, because this was a rare case where she did want to. Jo didn’t make herself out to be some Robin Hood. But she knew when having three digits in a bank account felt like a triumph, and she didn’t like screwing over the working man.
“I need a place we can set up for my prep,” Jo flipped her USB in her pocket over and over, reassuring herself that it was still there.
“What’re you thinking? Computer café?”
“No, too impermanent. I hope it’ll only take hours, but if it takes days I do not want to be setting up and tearing down constantly. . . This’ll do.” Jo pointed at a random hotel as they passed. A golden statue of a man on a horse, flag in hand frozen mid-wave, was positioned out front, the letters HOTEL REGINA emblazoned in the same on a black plaque by the door. Five gold stars were proudly displayed below them.
“A hotel? I didn’t take you for moving that quickly.”
Jo rolled her eyes at the implication. Still, after Wayne’s earlier moment of genuine. . . what would she call it? Attraction? Whatever it was, after that moment, his quirks seemed more bearable. “We can get our own room to make our command center.”
The lobby was stunningly art nouveau. White and grey marble were diagonally laid in a checkered pattern under classic furniture, all polished to a mirror shine that picked up the sunlight filtering through the sheer curtains of the curving windows lining the front wall.
Jo was given pause by the chandelier, the ironwork of the banister, the carvings inlaid at the lobby desk. She was reminded of the decadence of the mansion in the Society, but this truly felt real. There were indents in the counter from a long history of people leaning against the edge. There were scuffs on the floor, and the couches looked as if invisible people still sat in them.
It was a place with spirit, not a place of spirits.
“This way.” Jo walked over to the check-in counter, completely ignored by the people behind, bellhops stepping around them.
“What’re you looking for?” Wayne asked. He was back to flipping his nickel, a rhythmic up and down that was almost impressive. (But she didn’t want to give him the satisfaction of saying so.)
“I just need a. . . a. . . ah.” Jo saw a side office with a halfway open door—just enough to squeeze through without needing to activate their watches. Ignoring the bolded “PRIVATE” sign that warned off the regular hotel patron, Jo helped herself into the room. “Close and lock the door.”
Wayne didn’t question, lifting his wrist and pushing in one of the knobs on the side of his watch. He closed the door with his back against it, presumably to avoid being seen, but his nonchalant and undeniably suggestive lean after it was locked said otherwise.
“If you wanted to get me alone, all you had to do was ask.”
“Sorry.” Jo rolled her eyes. “I was looking for some time with my first love.”
Jo activated her watch and felt reality come back to her in full force. She could touch things again, interact with things, and she’d never been happier to feel the clicking of keys under her fingers.
“What’re you doing?” Wayne strolled over, pocketing his nickel on the way and leaning over her shoulder.
“Just getting us a room.”
“A room?” Wayne looked over her shoulder. “Doll, the penthouse suite is not just a room.”
“Didn’t you say that every now and then, you like to enjoy yourself a bit? Well, I want to stay in style.” Jo flashed him a grin. This was the life she’d always dreamed of, right? Why not? What were they going to do if they caught her? Jo doubted there was an “out of time and space” jail she could be sent to.
Wayne roared with laughter.
“Quiet down or you’re going to get us caught!” she hissed.
“I already pulled out.” He tapped his watch. “No need to waste time.”
“I thought we couldn’t be seen by people in the real world?” Jo could see Wayne clear as day, even though her stopwatch was ticking.
“We can’t be. But you’re not a part of, as you put it, the ‘real world’ anymore, dollface.”
“Right, magic.” Jo’s fingers tapped over the keys with renewed enthusiasm. Magic. She existed with real magic. Her mind began to whir around the possibility as her hands moved on instinct. “Almost done. . .”
Her fingers flew over the keys and tapped the touch screen. The universe contained in binary unfolded before her. There were the familiar pathways she’d traversed before, but now, new tracks made themselves known to her. If she wanted to stall out the hotel system, it would be simple. Take down the email client they used? Child’s play.
She saw the entire framework of the hotel’s digital existence through the light of the computer screen, and knew just how to dismantle it, if she wanted, without even needing to think about it. It was that same feeling she had found in the recreation room, but this time it was out in the world itself.
Why couldn’t she have felt this way taking down the Black Bank? If she had, she and Yuusuke wouldn’t have had to spend so much time locked down. They might have—
Wayne’s mouth appeared next to her ear and the husk of his voice broke through her thoughts.
“Your magic is stunning.”
Chapter 16
Penthouse
“NOT MAGIC, JUST technology. The same trusty technology humanity has been using in place of magic since the dawn of man.” Jo did one final sweep of the desktop, making sure she’d erased all trace of her presence on the computer. Even if she could disappear into thin air with a tap of her watch, old habits involving covering her tracks were hard to break.
Wayne was unconvinced. “Firstly, technology has not replaced magic from the dawn of man. Secondly, while technology was involved, I know magic when I see it.”
“Not everything in the world is magic. The supernatural is what technology can’t explain yet,” she countered on instinct. Jo inwardly cringed the moment she espoused the same thing she’d heard for years as a kid.
“Really? You have that opinion now? Just when you seem to be settling in to being part of a magic society?”
Jo shook her head. “Ignore me. I’m sounding like my father and I hate that.”
Wayne watched her carefully for a long second, and gave a nod. “Can’t have that, can we, doll?”
“Definitely not.” Jo unlocked the door, swinging it open just enough before she tapped her watch. The hotel was oblivious to their presence as they stepped out of the private office. Wayne strode over to a grouping of couches, plopped himself down on one and motioned for her to follow. As she sat, he pushed the button on his watch and Jo did the same with hers.
One bellhop seemingly noticed their pop back into reality. He was so startled from his daydreams, staring off at nothing in their general direction, that he nearly fell over standing in place. He blinked at them twice, shook his head, and looked away.
“Shall we check in?” Wayne stood.
“Why did we sit?” Jo wondered aloud as she followed him back toward the front desk.
“I find it’s less jarring if you’re not in people’s line of sight when you activate your time.” He shrugged. “No matter how you appear, they just sort of play it off as if they haven’t been paying enough attention to their surroundings. But that process moves faster if it’s more of a ‘corner of the eye’ kind of thing. Being lower helps with that.”
Jo looked back at the bellhop who was still regarding them warily. “I get that, I guess.”
“Checking in for two, Espinosa.” Wayne l
eaned against the counter smugly. His eyes drifted over the set-up where a woman was presumably pulling up their reservations. If Jo didn’t know better, she’d have said he was the hotelier stopping in to make sure everything was running according to his expectations.
Jo watched him thoughtfully, putting aside his tiresome antics of clinging to the 1920s and incessant use of “doll” to see the man with new eyes. His suit, while dated, looked like it was freshly pressed. It was tailored with impeccable skill and had an air of “intentional retro” that almost seemed to fit with the two-hundred-fifty-year-old hotel. He looked well put-together.
In contrast. . . Jo looked down at her bargain-bin jeans and tired hoodie. She did not look like someone who would be checking into the penthouse of a five-star hotel.
Or maybe she did.
Jo leaned against the counter as well, pretending she owned the place, pretending she owned the whole damn city. She’d seen billionaires who never changed out of sweatpants and heiresses who couldn’t be bothered to think of anything more than their standard-issue black tank tops. It didn’t matter how she looked; it mattered how she acted.
Jo decided she was acting like she was nothing less than a woman who owned the world.
“I’d also like a bottle of champagne sent up to the room later tonight,” Jo demanded.
“Yes, of course. . . Do you have any preference on the vintage?”
“The nicest one you have.”
“Now you’re talking.” Wayne appraised her with a long rake of his eyes, as if seeing her for the first time.
“Charge it to the room,” Jo added. They were disappearing on the tab if it was one hundred or one thousand euro. So why not make it one thousand? This wasn’t some small mom-and-pop operation, like the café. A hotel this swanky and established would be fine footing the bill of their mysterious patrons.
“Certainly. Is there anything else we can do to make your stay more enjoyable?” the clerk asked.
“Nothing I can think of right now, but you’ll be the first to know.”
The woman behind the counter looked at both of their wrists. Jo knew what was coming next before it happened. “If I can just have your watch to Bluetooth the room key. . .”
“I’m afraid the thing’s busted.” Jo tapped it to life, very careful not to pull it off the stopwatch. “Stuck on this screen.”
“No trouble, we can give you temporary keys.” The woman fumbled behind the counter for several moments until she found a forgotten box of plastic room keys, the sort of thing you’d expect to see in a retro motel and not a five-star establishment. Two long minutes, and several apologies later for not quite knowing how the system for temporary keys worked, Jo and Wayne had room keys in hand.
Jo was already paranoid about losing hers.
“Okay, we have the room, what next?” Wayne asked as they waited for the elevators to take them all the way up to the lavish accommodations that would be their home and home base.
“Now, I do a bit of shopping.” Her insides squirmed with excitement at the word. She was going to make the dream set-up the mansion had given her a reality.
Chapter 17
Bellhop Bet
GETTING EVERYTHING SET up without using too much time was looking to be a bit of a challenge. They’d managed to get a substantial amount of tech sent up to the penthouse, always while they were “out” and always in unmarked boxes. Jo had the majority of what she needed uploaded on a flash drive, but she still required a physical presence to be able to implement it in all the ways she needed to. Which meant she had to be stingy, and she had to make sure everything was in order before jumping in headfirst.
Wayne, in all chivalrousness, took the brunt of the time spent. Jo wanted to argue, but she didn’t. He’d reminded her that he had time left over from past wishes and Yuusuke needed them a lot more than either of them needed a few hours of play time (or work, supposedly, if she was ever brought in on a wish) in the real world.
So, Jo embarked on the forehead-desk-meeting sort of task that it was to get Wayne acquainted with her setup, and typed over his hands, showing him what he needed to do and where. She worked alongside him, and then just had him hit “go” on the scripts she was building.
The last time she’d tried to hit the Black Bank it had been about proving herself, about Yuusuke and her becoming legends in the community, making all the money she’d ever need, and then making a clean escape—all while being able to give their families the lives they deserved.
Maybe Yuusuke was still aiming for that goal, but Jo’s new mission was simpler: keep Yuu safe, help him succeed. Make sure her wish wasn’t made in vain. Make sure this equally magical and insane life she now lived had meaning.
Lucky for Yuusuke, Jo knew exactly how he hacked, had learned alongside him for years when they were kids. She knew just as much about the ins and outs of his capabilities as she did her own, and worked to string together a foundation of code for Yuu to find.
Jo wasn’t looking to break into the Black Bank herself—she was looking to give Yuusuke all the back doors he needed in all the places only he would think to look. She was hollowing out the whole thing so that it’d fall like a house of cards the moment he came tapping.
“Damn,” Jo sighed, turning her watch off the moment she hit a roadblock; no use wasting time on frustration.
“Everything all right, doll?” Wayne asked from where he was lying on the bed, staring blearily at the ceiling (his monitor tolerance was much, much lower than hers, and they’d been at it for nearly three days now). Jo groaned, then placed a hand on the keyboard in front of her, hating the way the touch felt instantly less pronounced.
“Just another setback we don’t really have time for. . . I’ll figure it out.” There had to be at least a few more ways she could obfuscate things. She needed an excellent, elegant virus that no one would even see. Yuu would trigger it, then it’d eat away at the security of the Black Bank like a parasite, and then it’d eat itself. She needed perfection on a time budget of about twenty minutes. “I can do this in ten, then I’m sure—”
She had already clicked on her watch, eyes scanning the lines and lines of code on the screen, when the lock on the door deactivated and a bellhop let himself in. She hadn’t even heard him knock. Had he knocked?
“Oh! Ms. Espinoza, my sincerest apologies!” The bellhop bowed, a little panicked. “I was informed by the desk that you were out and I was to deliver. . . I didn’t mean to. . . disturb. . . you. . .” The words trailed off as he stood from his bow, his eyes finally taking in the sight of the very elaborate-looking display of tech before him. Jo didn’t doubt they’d sent him up under some false pretense to investigate the unmarked packages; his look of confirmed suspicion told her as much. But the surprise at actually finding them in the room seemed genuine, especially with the panic of needing to find an excuse for why he’d just waltz into a hotel patron’s room unannounced.
This was the last thing they needed right now. Jo couldn’t turn off her watch with him staring directly at her, but with every moment he stood gaping at the incriminating display and stewing in his own panic, she lost precious time.
Suddenly, Wayne was in front of her, a hand finding her shoulder and giving it a squeeze. The bellhop gave Wayne simple, mostly distracted greetings. He didn’t seem to have been startled by a man suddenly appearing before him, which meant Wayne must have turned on his watch in the bedroom, just out of sight.
“Do what you do best, doll,” Wayne said in a tone low enough for only her to hear. “I’ll handle the stool pigeon.” Jo looked at the line of Wayne’s back, at the confident stretch of his posture. His other hand was already in his pocket, pulling out a familiar, silver coin. Even though Wayne wasn’t looking, she nodded, trying her best to focus on the task at hand. Time was ticking.
She still couldn’t help listening to their conversation, however.
“How about a little bet, hmm?” Wayne asked, his tone suave. Jo heard the sound of his nickel
flipping off the edge of his thumbnail, followed by the bellhop’s confused stuttering.
“Really, s-sir, I should probably be—”
“Just a little bet. Heads says you tell your bosses you saw nothing unusual up here, tails says you get my nickel and do whatever your conscience deems fit. Whatcha say?”
The bellhop lingered in his own uncertainty. Discomfort radiated off of him, and was no doubt making the man eager to leave. Inwardly cursing, Jo pulled up a new tab on one of her screens to research.
“You really should take him up on it,” Jo chimed in before the bellhop could scurry away and rat them out. She looked over her shoulder, fingers still typing away as if she could care less about the situation. As though she wasn’t embroiled in something highly illegal on every other monitor than the one showing a large picture of Wayne’s nickel. She thought the coin looked odd from the start. “That’s a liberty head nickel.” Both men stared at her dumbly, and Jo had to force herself not to laugh. “They don’t mint nickels anymore. At all. It’s practically ancient now, clear back to the days of the United States of America. And the liberty head was pretty rare to begin with, so it’s got to be worth at least a couple thousand.”
Jo finally stopped typing, looking the bellhop in the eye. She could see his resolve wavering at the mention of the nickel’s worth. A bellhop surely didn’t make that much money, even in a five-star hotel; she figured it might peak his interest. What she didn’t expect was the look of pure shock on Wayne’s face.
“Just a quick bet?” The bellhop eventually cracked, probably finally realizing he had nothing to lose and everything to gain. Wayne cleared his throat and continued flipping his nickel, confident smirk falling back into place. “Okay.”
Wayne gave the coin one final flip before slapping it into the back of his hand. It was, expectedly, heads. “Them’s the breaks, kid,” he winked, and Jo watched as the bellhop straightened, a look of confusion flitting across his face. When he opened his mouth to speak, he seemed at a loss for words, and eventually just shut his mouth and shook his head. Wayne just put a hand on the boy’s shoulder and ushered him back towards the door. “Better luck next time.”