White Knights

by Julie Moffett

  “I wouldn’t miss it for the world,” Wally said.

  “I’m in, too,” said Frankie. “If this company is doing bad things, we need to find out what it is.”

  “We will.”

  The bell rang, and we separated. I headed to math class and ran into Nic standing on the bottom step, waiting for me.

  I did an immediate U-turn and headed for the other set of stairs, but he chased after me. “Angel, wait a minute. I want to talk to you.”

  “Go away, Nic.”

  “Just wanted you to know, I’m ahead of you in terms of current GPA.”

  I didn’t have to ask how he knew that. He probably had hacked in and checked my every assignment, quiz grade, and teacher note. He could have changed any of my grades to suit his whim, but he knew I could do the same if I wanted to. Besides, he didn’t want to beat me by cheating. Where would be the satisfaction in that?

  “Good for you. Don’t care.”

  “Yes, you do.” He stepped in front of me, causing me to stop. He had a big smile on his face and his different-colored eyes gleamed when I looked at him. “Admit it. You want this as badly as I do.”

  I put my hands on my hips and frowned. I had no idea why he was so obsessed with my academic progress. “I don’t, Nic. I really don’t. I’m not playing a role in your creepy academic fantasy. I don’t care if I’m valedictorian. Get a life and leave me out of yours.”

  I darted around him and down the corridor.

  “This isn’t over, Angel,” he called.

  I ignored him. I had to figure out what to do about that guy. He was starting to be a real problem. Unfortunately, for the time being, I had other, more pressing problems.

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  ANGEL SINCLAIR

  Wally, Frankie, and I met in the parking lot after school and headed to BioLimbs. The main office was in Silver Spring, Maryland, about twenty minutes from the school.

  When we arrived at BioLimbs, Wally pulled into a visitor spot. We sat in the car examining the office building. It was modern, sleek, and screamed money. A white sign with blue letters lit from behind perched over a covered entranceway to the building and said BioLimbs. I counted four floors.

  “Cool design.” Frankie rolled down the window and hung out it. “Modern with a hint of contemporary tech.” She rolled up the window and climbed out of the car. “Come on. I want to get a look at the inside design.”

  We followed her to the front door and went inside. White marble floors and white walls gleamed with silver-tubed lighting. It was a little too much white for me, but Frankie whistled under her breath. “Sweet. Will you look at that?”

  That, apparently, was the lobby in front of us. A long, white modular desk dominated the lobby. The waiting room consisted of white pod chairs around a circular coffee table made of clear glass. Only a splash of blue in the corner in the form of a waist-high blue sculpture of an hourglass broke up the whiteness.

  A guy sitting behind the desk in a light-blue shirt and red tie rose. “Can I help you?”

  I stepped forward. “Hi. My name is Angel Sinclair. I’m an intern from X-Corp. I have some papers for Mr. Vincent Kars.”

  “Is he expecting you?”

  “I’m not sure. I’m just the intern. I was told I had to personally deliver the papers to him today.”

  “Personally?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “What’s your name again?”

  “Angel Sinclair.”

  He looked over Wally and Frankie. “And who are they?”

  “That is Wally Harris, who also interns for X-Corp. Frances Chang is our assistant.”

  “Interns have assistants?”

  “Yes.” I didn’t blink or change the expression on my face.

  He looked me over and shrugged. He punched in a number on his phone, pressing the handset to his ear.

  “Mr. Kars, Angel Sinclair and her two assistants from X-Corp are here to see you.”

  Frankie leaned over to whisper in my ear. “Just so we’re clear, I am not your assistant.”

  “I know,” I hissed back.

  The guy talking on the phone was silent and then said, “I don’t know. She says she has some papers for you and they must be delivered in person.” He listened and then nodded. “Okay.”

  He hung up the phone and wrote something down on a paper. He looked up at us. “I need your driver’s licenses, please.”

  Wally stepped forward, pulling his wallet out of his pocket. “I’m the only one with a driver’s license.”

  “Will a student ID be okay?” Frankie asked.

  Seeing as how he didn’t have much choice, the receptionist took our IDs, scanned them, and returned the cards. I was relieved we were getting inside.

  The guard asked us to wait in the pod chairs. We had fun spinning around in them until a woman dressed in a black skirt and white blouse retrieved us. Her blond hair was pulled back into a bun and she wore the reddest lipstick I’d ever seen. Or maybe it seemed like the reddest because everything else was so white.

  She held out a hand. “Hello. I’m Nancy Reno, personal assistant to Mr. Kars.”

  She was stiff and unsmiling, like a robot. We all shook her hand—it was cold—before she led us to the elevator. When we got inside, Ms. Reno pushed the button for four and then stared straight ahead as if we didn’t exist. The elevator music was electronic piano, which fit the decor but made me feel like I was inside a computer.

  Ms. Reno led us down a sterile white corridor before stopping at a door. The doorplate read Victor Kars, Director of Research. I exchanged a nervous glance with Wally as the woman knocked on the door and a gruff voice indicated we should enter. Ms. Reno opened the door, and a man rose from behind a desk. Ms. Reno closed the door behind us and left as soon as we had entered.

  My breath caught in my throat. It was the same guy I’d seen in Mr. Matthews’s office, down to the black ring on the third finger of his right hand.

  When his gaze fell upon me, he looked surprised. “You? What are you doing here?”

  I stepped forward. “You do recognize me. You were in Mr. Matthews’s office on the first day of school. He spoke to you and said he was worried about something. You told him he was overreacting and that you’d take care of it.”

  “Okay.” He spread his hands. “So what, and why are you here?”

  I faltered. “So…you don’t deny it?”

  “Why would I deny it?”

  Alarm coursed through me. “Because the police didn’t know about it.”

  “Why would the police care about that?” His expression was one of confusion and frustration. Either he was a good actor or he genuinely didn’t know what was going on.

  I exchanged a concerned glance with Wally. My plan was going totally awry. “Don’t you know what happened to Mr. Matthews?”

  “No.” Mr. Kars frowned. “What happened to Ryan?”

  I gave him a brief rundown. When I finished, he sat down hard in his chair and ran his fingers through his hair. “Not Ryan. Oh, God, not again.”

  “Mr. Kars. Mr. Matthews was talking to you because of his prostheses, right?”

  He hung his head, looking distressed. “Yes.”

  “He has the latest design made by BioLimbs. The one that uses IMES, right?”

  He lifted his head and stared at me. “How do you know that? Why did you say you worked for X-Corp?”

  “Because I do. I’m an intern and so is Wally. We’re trying to help Mr. Matthews. I think there’s something wrong with his prostheses. Something that caused him to have the accident. I don’t think it was a coincidence that he was talking to you about it on the day of his accident.”

  “It’s not the prostheses,” Mr. Kars insisted. “Yes, Ryan was complaining of some unusual twitches the previous day, but it wasn’t anything serious. We’ve done exhaustive sweeps of our software and hardware. We even hired X-Corp, as you know, to see if they could find an outside source, a cyberpenetration, that might have been inter
fering with the software. Nothing was found. If you work there, you can confirm that. We reset everything to default, and we’re completely clean. The design is flawless. The problem is somewhere else.”

  “And yet accidents keep happening. Mr. Matthews isn’t the first client with the new IMES prostheses to have an accident.”

  His dark eyes zeroed in on mine. There was shock, then anger. “How do you know that?”

  I lifted my chin. “I’m resourceful.”

  We stared at each other for a long moment. Frankie and Wally were completely still next to me. It was so silent in the room I could hear myself breathing. Finally, Mr. Kars stood and leaned against a corner of his desk.

  “We haven’t issued any more of the new prostheses, just in case. But I swear, there is no malfunction in our hardware or design.”

  “But something is wrong somewhere,” I insisted.

  “What’s wrong is that you’re a kid and you already put this together. Now it’s only a matter of time before this completely blows up. Investors will pull out, BioLimbs could face countless lawsuits, and all the advances BioLimbs has made to help veterans and amputees lead normal lives are going to disappear.”

  I thought about how Mr. Matthews had worn the prostheses for months and no one, including me, had ever noticed. He’d been given back his legs, and his life, because of the remarkable prostheses built by this company. Suddenly, I didn’t know what was the right thing to do anymore.

  I exhaled a deep breath. “We’re going to figure this out, Mr. Kars. I promise you that.”

  Chapter Thirty

  CANDACE KIM

  NSA Headquarters, Fort Meade, Maryland

  Candace was leaving the director’s weekly stand-up briefing when she saw Isaac angling through the departing staff toward her. He was probably going to complain that things were moving too slowly. She could count the ways she disliked him, starting with the perpetual smirk on his face.

  As expected, he fell in step beside her. “What’s new on the Avenger?” He looked over his shoulder to see who else might be in listening distance.

  She kept walking. “Nothing new on our end. Have you made any progress going through the list of people he may have interacted with here at the agency?”

  “I have a list, and I’ve even talked to people, some who remain at the agency and a few who are retired. I’m still working through it.”

  “Good. I went over the dossier you sent on Ethan Sinclair several times. If he’s the Hidden Avenger, there’s nothing in his record that might indicate why he left, and certainly not why he would have taken up such a career. I need more insight that might help us in our negotiations. He appears to be as much a mystery on paper as he is in cyberspace. How much interaction did you have with him back in the day?”

  “Not much. He worked at the satellite office at King’s Security. I wasn’t there often. His reputation was that he was a loner. Kept to himself.”

  “Anything else?”

  Isaac shrugged. “He always seemed a little odd to me. Brilliant, but odd. It was a long time ago, Candace. His motivations surely must have changed.”

  “Maybe. It’s puzzling, though. His bio states he had a PhD in mathematics from MIT and was researching unbreakable new concepts in encryption. His performance reports suggest he was arguably the best in his field.”

  “That is certainly overstated.” Isaac snorted in contempt. “He often took credit for the work of others.”

  Candace stopped in her tracks and turned to face Isaac. “Why do you say that?”

  “Well, I don’t know that definitively. I remember hearing rumors about it.”

  “It wasn’t in his file.”

  “Not surprising. Who is going to write a rumor in a report?”

  Candace studied him. She crossed her arms against her chest. “I want everything you have, Isaac. That includes rumor.”

  “Of course. I’m already on it.”

  “I need to know why he doesn’t trust us. What does he want and why is he doing this? We must tread carefully. We don’t want to spook him.”

  “We don’t, indeed. I’ll let you know when I’m ready with the information.”

  “Just make it soon.” As he turned to leave, Candace shot out a hand, blocking his way.

  “By the way, Ethan disappeared shortly after J.P. Lando, another of our analysts, died in a tragic boating accident in West Virginia. His file says they were working on the encryption project shortly before his accident. Do you think that had anything to do with him leaving? Might he be involved in that in some way, or could that have something to do with why he wants immunity protection?”

  “I remember that accident.” Isaac’s expression was thoughtful. “I even went to Lando’s funeral. But I don’t remember the details. It was a long time ago. It’s a potential angle, though. I’ll check it out for you, but I don’t think it’s related.”

  “Just the same, would you shoot me Lando’s file, please?”

  “No sense in two of us spending time on it. I’ll check it out for you.”

  “I appreciate the offer, but regardless, I’d like to have a look of my own.”

  Isaac smirked. “Fine. If you want to waste your time, go ahead. I’m not sure what you think you’ll find.”

  “I’m not sure, either. It’s just a hunch. And I always trust my hunches.”

  Isaac shrugged and walked away without another word. Candace watched him go, her feelings uneasy. He was hiding something. She hadn’t worked her way up to the top of a super secretive agency without learning to read people. Something wasn’t right with him, and she was going to find out what it was. Patience and determination were two of her greatest virtues. She’d figure it out soon enough.

  Chapter Thirty-One

  ANGEL SINCLAIR

  When I got home from BioLimbs, I paced the apartment trying to get my mind wrapped around everything. So much data, and none of it made sense in the big picture. I couldn’t distinguish a pattern, a reason, or even a gut feeling.

  I needed a break to rest my mind. The best cure for calming me—as odd as it sounded—was the search for my dad. I just knew that if he were around, he’d know how to make sense of this. According to my mom, he was a lot like me—analytical, logical, creative.

  I sat down in front of my laptop. I’d just rested my fingers on the keyboard when my cell rang. I picked it up off my desk.

  “Hey, Wally.”

  “Angel, you got a minute?”

  “Sure. What’s up?”

  “Before you go all nuclear on me, I want to say up front that this isn’t about BioLimbs, high-tech prostheses, or Mr. Matthews. It’s about your dad. You can hear what I need to say or you can tell me to get lost and hang up. I’m giving you the option. But after I tell you, there is no going back.”

  It was like he’d hit me. I blinked, dazed, and then fought to get my thoughts in order. It must have taken me longer than I thought, because Wally spoke.

  “Yo, Angel? You still there?”

  My gut tightened as I fought to keep my voice steady, neutral. “What about my dad?”

  He let out a breath, as if he’d been holding it. “Well, I’ve been doing some research on him—well, at least the company he was working for when he disappeared. King’s Security.”

  “I know he worked at King’s Security. Why are you doing this?”

  He paused. “Because…you’re my friend. Now, before you say it, I know you didn’t ask me for help. I’ll be the first to admit that sticking my nose where it doesn’t belong is a bad habit of mine. But something about that police report didn’t add up for me, either. It was too perfect. Too staged. It raised my hackles. Once that happens, I’m like a dog with a bone—latched on and not surrendering. You were on to something, Angel. I believe that.”

  I was half furious, half impressed by his audacity. At the same time, I couldn’t express how much it meant to me to hear Wally say he believed me and trusted my hunch that the police hadn’t gotten the full story
.

  “Anyway,” he continued, “I think it had to be something he was doing at King’s Security that either caused him to bolt or be forcibly removed. Unless he had a hidden second life. That, by the way, was going to be my next search avenue. But my first plan was to take a fresher, deeper look into King’s Security.”

  I was stunned. “You think the police…lied about the company?”

  “Maybe not lied, but definitely didn’t pry. You are far too trusting, kid. Let that be a lesson. Trust no one—or trust carefully. Always challenge the evidence and those who produce it. That doesn’t mean I’m advocating chaos or anarchy, but there are no truths until you prove them so.”

  I truly didn’t know what to say. I had mixed feelings about Wally messing in my personal life, while at the same time being utterly riveted by what he was saying. “Go on.”

  “I decided to investigate the company.” Wally paused. “You know what I mean by investigate, right?”

  Oh, I knew all right. Hacking. He’d hacked my dad’s security company. I don’t know why I’d never done it except…I hadn’t thought there would be anything there to discover. I trusted the police report of the investigation into the company and the conclusion that my father hadn’t been working on anything unusual before his disappearance. His meetings and visitors in the weeks before his disappearance had all been vetted and cleared. His colleagues were mystified as to why he’d go missing. What purpose would the police have for falsifying the report?

  “What did you find?” My voice was surprisingly shaky.

  He lowered his voice. “King’s Security isn’t who they say they are. They’re not your run-of-the-mill security company.”

  “They’re not?” My breath caught in my throat. “Then who are they?”

  “The NSA.”

  Wally didn’t want to talk any more about it on the phone, not that I blamed him. Besides, Frankie was coming over to help him make the powdered-sugar bullets for the Medieval Melee. We hung up, agreeing to speak privately later.