“All set, Mr. Torres?” he said. By his accent, Mike guessed he was originally from a more rural part of Texas.
“Yeah,” Mike said, “but is this all really necessary?”
“One minute,” the pilot said. He went back into the cockpit, and a few moments later they were lifting off the 60th floor helipad of Silte headquarters. They rose up above the building before starting forward. The pilot returned and took one of the seats opposite Mike’s.
“We’re on auto,” the pilot said. “Gonna loop around then drop you at the designated spot at the Plaza in Old Downtown.”
“Starmine Plaza?”
“Used to be,” the pilot said. “It’s Silte Plaza as of this morning. But the whole top third’s been converted to Silte VIP housing and facilities.” He grinned, showing yellowish teeth and extended his hand. “Name’s Garrett Thurman, by the way. I’ve been running folks up to the Plaza all day. Think I had your wife and daughter in here not two hours ago.”
Mike nodded and tried not to look too unnerved. An HR-bot had popped up on his desk screen soon after Monika Leutz had left his office, informing him his wife and daughter were being relocated to a safe place, and he would join them by helicopter at the end of the work day. Enraged (and more terrified than he had wanted to admit) he had had Elle ping Leutz’s office repeatedly, to no avail. Later, Meredith had popped up angrily in a vid-call, demanding to know why the hell she and Natalie had been told to leave their things and get on a Silte helicopter, which, by the way, absolutely destroyed the back garden. He hadn’t had an answer for her then and wasn’t sure he would have one when he met up with her at the Plaza.
Turning away from Garrett the pilot, Mike looked out through the lonely window at a skyline bathed in dusk. The last rays of the setting sun set the buildings ablaze with a blinding orange glow just as lights began coming on around the city. Lines of red brake lights marked the evening rush. Do any of them suspect what’s coming? Are any of them frightened, hiding, bracing themselves? Something terrible would happen, eventually; Mike was almost certain.
The whiskey had numbed the shock of the revelation that his bosses were artificial personalities, but that fact was nothing compared to the sobering details of the Project Unify report. Silvan wasn’t just buying out companies big and small; he was somehow bringing strategically selected CEOs and executives from non-Silte businesses across the country under his complete control—through persuasion or blackmail or something worse, Mike didn’t care to guess. But the rest was more troubling, largely because of how mysterious it was. Silte’s private police, the GPA, had used an experimental bioweapon against the Anti-Corp protesters. The report had not elaborated on the nature of the weapon, only said that all essential employees of Silte and its major subsidiaries would be kept ‘away from the chaos,’ whatever that meant. Despite all of this, though, the part that truly scared Mike was the report’s chilling final message: now that he had read the report, speaking of any details to someone outside of Silte Corporation (and they would know if he did, Mike was sure) would result in ‘termination’ of those involved. In other words, death.
To the man at the top of the tower, nothing was unreachable, and no method was too heinous in order to realize that statement.
“Something wrong?” Garrett asked.
“No,” Mike lied. “It’s just I don’t care much for flying.”
The pilot looked for a moment as though he would be offended, but then he smiled. “Don’t you worry. This is only temporary. They’ll have the skyways built in a week or two, and then you can ride a cart to and from the office.”
“You know this?” Mike was skeptical. Not only would it be an incredibly difficult architectural feat to accomplish in such a short time, but this was coming from a pilot. The man was wearing a jacket with the Silte Corp logo on it, but why would a helicopter pilot have more information than a senior manager?
“I’ve been flying the Silte execs around for longer than you’ve been workin’ here.” He stuck out his chest with pride as he spoke. “Even flew Silvan himself a few times. Maybe they trust me. Or maybe they just tell me what I need to know. I don’t know; I just do my job.” A low beep sounded, and the pilot stood up. “We’re landing. Sit tight.” He went back into the cabin.
Faintly Mike saw through the window the neon green glow of the building beneath them. For decades the Plaza had ruled the Dallas skyline until Silvan had come in and laid the foundation for Silte Corp’s dominance. He owned both of them now, titans each of past and present. The helicopter slowed until it lightly touched down on top of the building now known as Silte Plaza. As Mike unfastened his restraints and got up, Garrett came back and prepared to open the door. Rather than open it, however, he stood there and looked at Mike.
“It’ll be a full one in here tomorrow morning,” he said. “We have two copters, ten minutes apart, every forty-five minutes starting at seven. Get back up here bright and early, and you may not have to stand on the ride to work.”
“Thanks,” Mike said.
“And listen,” Garrett said, quieter now, “you want my advice, keep your head down for the next few weeks. Blend in. You’re pretty new here, not like the others yet. Just so happens all this stuff went down before you could assimilate. Too bad. Or good, depending on how you look at it.”
“What are you talking about?”
“I don’t know. Nothing.” He pulled out a small, obsolete-looking tablet and gestured at Mike, who, guessing his intent, pulled his own thin-screen foldable microtablet out. “My card,” Garrett said as he tapped his screen a few times and then bumped his tablet against Mike’s. “Remember, you have a friend in Garrett Thurman. Now get down to that wife, and give her a nice sloppy kiss.”
All other sound was drowned out as the door opened and the cacophony of the rotors flooded in. Mike grabbed up his briefcase and carefully stepped out, crossing the roof quickly to escape the wind from the blades. As another armored Silte guard opened the door to the building, Mike wondered what the pilot had been warning him about—because he had no doubt that’s what the man’s advice had been: a cleverly disguised warning.
* * *
The elevator ride down to his new home (a temporary one, he told himself) was short; only the top sixteen floors were being used for housing Silte VIPs and their families. He had learned from a security guard, though, that the top thirty had been renovated and repurposed. The man had hinted that at least some of those lower floors were barracks of some kind. Mike suspected there was more than just Silte security down there. Money’s not the only power necessary for Project Unify to work. It seemed Silvan had embraced the fact that he needed brute force to make success possible. Or did he? Maybe the show of force was nothing more than an elaborate distraction while he snatched up what remained of the world outside of his control. It was all so confusing; Mike couldn’t possibly understand the mind that had dreamed this plot up, much less guess its intent.
Stopping at the 70th floor, the elevator let him out into a vast, bright hallway. The concrete walls were barren and unpainted; the whole place felt slightly unfinished. Drag us from our homes without even giving us a proper place to live? He had figured out that there were twenty-four other Silte VIPs continuing to work at headquarters and being housed here. Each family got about a third of the area of two combined floors to themselves—smaller than many were leaving behind, but not cramped by any means.
His family’s apartment turned out to be the one at the end of the hall, with a brass 70C nailed to the heavy wooden door. The door had a fresh, home-improvement-store smell as if the wood had just been cut and finished that day, and it seemed absurdly out-of-place inside an office building. He instinctively placed his thumb on the ID pad by the handle; it was the same model as the one he had on the garage entrance at home. He waited for the click, then entered—but he had hardly stepped inside when his wife cornered him.
“You’re going to tell me what’s going on,” Meredith said, her voice low but
menacing. “You’re going to do it right now before doing anything else.”
“I can’t,” he said, looking straight into her hazel eyes. “I mean, I don’t know. I couldn’t find anything else.” It was only partially a lie. He would rather give Meredith that than test whether Silte Corp carried through on its ominous threats.
“Bullshit.”
“Honestly.” He had to give her as much of the truth as he could without giving up anything from the report. It was the only way she would buy it. “I got to the building today, and most of it was empty; almost everyone was put on indefinite leave. I asked around—I even talked to Monika Leutz in person—but I couldn’t get a straight answer. She only told me that I’m essential to the company. It’s Crisis Procedure, whatever the hell that is.”
“Crisis Procedure.”
He nodded. “And about this,” he gestured at the spacious room behind her, “I don’t know. All I could find out is that Silte knows something is about to happen, and whatever it is we will be a lot safer confined to a heavily-guarded tower than in a Highland Park neighborhood.”
The explanation was at least good enough to visibly calm her down. “I’m sorry, Mike, it’s just…I talked to Madison Bellowe over in 70A, and she was distraught, sobbing her lungs out. She kept saying she knew this was coming and ‘it’s over’ again and again. Mike, they can’t do this to us.”
“They can,” he said. “I knew that when I took this job.” He had heard the rumors many years ago when he was still working at Silvan Ventures. If half of them were true, anyone working for a company in the Silte family should be in constant fear for his life. But the incomparably high salary, benefits and job security made Mike, like most, dismiss this as paranoid ravings. Before he made the move from New York to Dallas, Darren, his CEO, had warned him that at headquarters Mike and his family would become like property to Silte Corp.
How maddeningly right he had been.
“Let’s go back,” Meredith said. “You can find a new job, away from Silte. I can get my old job back. I hate not working.” Convincing her to leave her position at Oppmann Financial had been the hardest part about making the move—though showing her his new salary had made the task much easier. A move back there to reclaim their old lives was impossible, but he didn’t have the strength to say that to her just now.
“They need me here,” he said. “We made our decision. They’ll bring stuff from the house tomorrow, and you and Natalie can settle in. It’ll just be until whatever’s going on below is over.” Will she hear screams and gunshots? Will she see the smoke and fire and think the world is ending? “How’s Natalie?” he said, moving on past Meredith into the apartment, pleasantly surprised by the luxurious look and feel of the place. The décor was surprisingly professional, albeit a little simpler than what they had at home. Still, it wasn’t anything close to a step down. In fact, it may not be so bad to stay here a while after all.
“Natalie’s fine,” Meredith said. “You know her. But she’s asleep already. I wouldn’t go in there.”
“Our bedroom?”
“Straight back, past the stairs,” she said. “I was only able to grab one extra suit for you before we left.”
He was on his way back to take his work clothes off when Meredith called out, freezing him in place. “Mike,” she said, “I’m going to find out what’s going on here.”
She will try, Mike thought as he passed the stairs, and he hoped for all their sakes that she did not succeed.
7
The night air was light with a summery breeze, and Bassett Street was resting in relative silence. Sabrina hadn’t expected much activity at 11 p.m., but there was no way to know how much longer she could rely on expectations. For all she knew some of her fellow officers were lurking behind one of the apartment buildings, watching and waiting to pounce on all their prey at once. By the end of the night, her fate may be the same as that of the man whose home she was approaching.
Jason Delaney’s apartment had a tarnished number 4 on the door. It was on the bottom level of one of the converted houses that had never been intended to be an apartment building, like many of the buildings this close to the center of downtown. As she knocked urgently on the door, she noticed a camera lens where a peephole might be. He probably had a security view-screen installed in the door; not uncommon in this city but still a little paranoid. She took a step back so he might see that she was not in her Guardian police uniform. In fact, she had put on the light cotton jacket and blue jean combo because it was the most casual outfit she had with her, and she wanted to be as unintimidating as possible. She needed Jason Delaney; there was no time to try to find another direct line to those who fought against Silte.
It was almost a full minute before the door creaked open, slowly, until Jason was in full view. His short, light brown hair was a mess, as if he had been sleeping. His face looked more weary than timid, and he seemed to have hastily thrown on his clothes. “Detective Sorensen,” he said. “You’re here to arrest me.” It wasn’t a question; on the contrary, he seemed to have been expecting it.
“No,” Sabrina said, “If that were the case, I would be in my Guardian uniform, with a patrol officer standing beside me and another out by the car.” He looked over her shoulder but saw no car; she had chosen to walk the mile or so from the hotel, not for the least because her car may still be traceable. “I’m here because I think we can help each other,” she explained.
“Help each other?” He looked dubious. “I helped you before, didn’t I? And anyway why not wait ’til morning and call me back in?”
“This can’t wait. Things have changed. Mr. Delaney—Jason, I… I read the Houston Warehouse report, and Guardian didn’t like my snooping. I think they’re going to come after me, and I really need your help. May I…come in?”
His eyes grew wide as she spoke and he looked over her shoulder again, then back at her with a pained expression, as if he were going through some inner turmoil. Finally, he said, “Yeah. Come on.”
She could guess the reason for his hesitance. For one thing, she might very well have Guardian officers tailing her right now, or at the very least keeping her on digital surveillance somehow; being seen with her could draw unwanted attention. But on top of that, Jason was the reason for it all, and she had good reason to blame him for possibly ruining her career, her life. She didn’t blame him, though; she was actually grateful in a way. She would have learned the true nature of her organization eventually, but this way she might actually be able to prevent innocent people from dying—people whose lives she was responsible for endangering in the first place. Maybe now she wouldn’t have to live with the guilt that was already starting to grow inside her.
However, while she had chosen not to blame him, he had definitely been deceptive during their meeting earlier, so she would let him go on thinking she begrudged him for a while. She really didn’t like people who obstructed justice. And anyway, she had to keep him distant, at least for now.
“Do you want something to drink?” Jason asked, his awkwardness almost painful.
“No, we should get into this right away.”
As soon as they were seated on soft armchairs in the apartment’s main room (which, Sabrina had to admit, was very neat) she dove right into it. He already knew about the Houston Warehouse, so she started with the warning message she had received and the ensuing vid-call from Lieutenant Garrol, relaying as best she could remember his exact warning that they would come for her. She told him of the further investigation she had done—through Erris’s ID to avoid suspicion—at the hotel. She had looked into Guardian’s notices sent out to all offices and found leads on who they might be targeting.
“Obviously,” Sabrina said, scrolling through notes on her tablet, “your friend Miss Washington and all known associates…” she paused and looked up at Jason, who seemed to understand the implication, “…are on the list. But it seems, well, I don’t think Guardian has you all on high priority, at least not now. I don’t
think they’ll be hunting you down just yet.”
“Great,” Jason said sarcastically.
“The primary targets are these. This is where I could use your help. All you have to do is tell me if you know anyone.” She placed her tablet on the table in front of him with the first target, a graying man of about forty, on the screen. “Him?”
“What’s the name? No, never seen him.”
As she showed him the photos, each accompanied by either a name or a nickname or both, he shook his head at each one; he knew not a single one, if he was being honest. This wasn’t going as planned
“And the last,” Sabrina said, wondering if this had been a waste of time after all, “is the big one. An alert issued this afternoon gave deadly force authorization to all Guardian officers for this target. She was a research scientist at OpenLife Biomedical, owned by Silte Corp. Apparently, she stole something so important from her lab that she’s actually got Silte scared of her. Dellia Thomas, twenty-eight. Dallas.”
The final image came on screen, that of a woman about Jason’s age with olive skin, flowing dark hair and a face with the slightest hint of exotic. She was standing on a balcony and leaning back against the railing, flashing a lazy smile at the camera. Jason Delaney’s eyes lingered distractedly, and Sabrina sat up straight. “You know her?”
“What?” he said. “No, uh…no.”
Saying nothing, Sabrina picked her tablet back up. She couldn’t blame him: the girl was very pretty. Sabrina preferred Erris’s softer eyes and long, golden hair—in a woman at least. But it was sad regardless to see someone so young and beautiful who would certainly die before this was over. She probably wouldn’t be the only one either. Young people liked to fight for what they believed in, and just now many of them seemed to believe in a world not run by Silte. It would be the young people who died, while the older ones stayed at home, their will to fight having turned into complacency.
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