They’d be monitoring the camera feeds and rushing to this spot. I willed myself to relax, Cam-surfed down the alley to a larger street, and spotted something that could be my salvation. A RoboTaxi, coming right toward me, and slow enough to hitch a ride.
I’d have to wait until the front fender passed. I ducked behind the corner of the alley and unslung my board. There was a humming noise behind me. My spine stiffened as I recognized it. I turned to look. A swarm of twenty or thirty drones was hurtling my way from the other end of the alley. It was too early to jump. The swarm was half way along now, their high-pitched whine growing constantly louder. They’d be on me in seconds. Finally the taxi’s fender appeared. As it passed I ran, jumped on my board, grabbed ahold of the back bumper, crouched down to avoid the cameras, and hitched a ride.
The swarm was right behind me. They couldn’t keep up to a vehicle going full speed, but we were still on a side-street, where the taxis were programmed to go slower. The drones were catching up. One fired a tranquilizing dart that clanked off the metal trunk I was holding on to. I was about to let go and run for it, when the taxi turned right onto a main street and sped up.
We pulled away from the drones. But now I had a new problem. Normally I would have let go by now — it was almost impossible to board behind a vehicle going at full speed. But this time I had no choice. I just hung on for dear life. The wheels of my board were rattling on the pavement. If we kept this up, they’d soon start breaking off.
We rounded a curve and the drones were out of sight. But I still couldn’t let go — we were going too fast. After ten minutes of expecting to die, we finally turned onto a side street, and slowed down. I let go, coasted to a stop, and stood there for a couple of seconds, hunched over, hyperventilating.
I could still hear the choppers and sirens in the distance, but they were now far away. I relaxed a bit. I got control of myself and started Cam-surfing. The blood pounded in my ears as I tried to put as much distance as possible between me and the last spot where I’d been visible.
CHAPTER 34
Stakeout
For some reason, I’d pictured the meeting place as some big, flashy celebrity hangout, like the ones they used in their stupid Safety Award shows, but it was wasn’t like that at all.
In fact, staring down at the beaten-up brick building that must have been built a hundred years ago, at first I thought I’d gotten the location wrong. But that couldn’t be. It was the right address, and the number on the melded card read less than fifty.
I was hiding out on the roof of a building across the street, deep in the Corp Ring. When I’d finally been able to stop long enough to catch my breath after train-hopping, I checked the card, and found that I was only a kilometer or so from my destination. I Cam-surfed the rest of the way without any problems.
My hideout was some low-level BuildCorp warehouse, so security was pretty slack. There were no guards at the doors, even the main ones, and all the cameras were visible. I just waited until somebody went in the side door, snuck in behind them before it closed, and found my way to the roof.
It was night now, the night before the date now flashing green on the melded card — the date of the meeting. It was a crazy scheme, but I was desperate; I’d never get another chance at Wickham. The truth was I hadn’t really thought any of it through. Right now, my only idea was to keep watch on the building and hope the right opportunity came along for me to sneak in. What was the right opportunity? I guessed I’d know it if I saw it.
Now that I’d made it here, and had some time to think about it, it hit home that after all the effort I’d put into getting this far, I had no idea what the meeting was about (or even that there was a meeting — maybe it was all a trap), and whether Wickham would actually be there. Anyway, I couldn’t get to Wickham if I couldn’t make it inside, and I’d never do that alone. If I was to have any hope of accomplishing my mission, I’d need some kind of help.
☼
I need another favour, I texted Richie over the crypted phone. It’s going to be tough, and probably really dangerous.
Hey, I’m getting used to all that by now, he texted back.
He didn’t respond for a few seconds after I described what I needed from him and his hacker friends. At first he thought I was kidding — hacking a high-level Corp meeting?
Once he’d gotten over the shock he told me he needed half an hour to contact his friends and talk over whether it was remotely possible.
Now that I knew where the meeting was I didn’t need to unblock the melded card again, which meant SecureCorp could no longer track me. Of course, they’d probably been monitoring the beacon all along, which meant they didn’t need to track me, since they knew where I was headed. They’d be waiting. Thus the need for the mother of all hacks I was asking for. The only way I had any chance of a shot at Wickham was to fool their system somehow.
It was more than an hour before Richie finally got back to me. No way we can hack the doors open, he texted. Whatever’s happening at this place, it must be big. It’s got security up the ying-yang.
So I’m screwed, I texted back.
Not necessarily, he answered. We can’t hack the doors open. But maybe we can do something else. Security for the entrances and exits are tight, but there’s other systems they haven’t paid much attention to — like the lighting, heat, sound.
How does that help? I texted.
He texted back. We can create a diversion.
☼
By the next night I was as ready as I was ever going to be. It was too dangerous to move around. I slept at my rooftop hiding place, and spent the day lying low and keeping my head down.
Now I was relieved to have the comfort of darkness again to hide in. The card was ticking down, now reading less than two hours before the meeting time. I peeked over the edge of the roof. The main entrance of the target building was still as dark as a tomb. It didn’t look like there was anything going on. But then, Vita Aeterna was a secret society — it wasn’t going to broadcast its meetings to the public.
The plan was that if conditions were right, I’d text Richie from the crypted phone, and he and his hacker friends would stomp on all the building’s systems they could access. If there was enough confusion, maybe a door would be left open when nobody was watching.
I headed down, snuck around the place, and found a tiny entrance at the back, with a single dim light above it. I expected that it would be less heavily guarded, but even that one had a guard. That was a good indicator that I had the right place — something big was going on.
I hid in a camera-less shadow behind a corner of a building across the street, where I still had a partial view of the main entrance. I waited, and twenty minutes later a big black limo slid up to the curb at the entrance, and a light at the front blinked on. A guy got out. It was too dark to make out who it was. He stopped in front for a few seconds, I guess to pass through security or something, then went in.
Over the next half-hour about twenty vehicles pulled up. Their owners all went through the same routine as the first guy. So far I hadn’t seen any way inside. The guard on the side door didn’t look like he was going anywhere, and even if he left, the door he was guarding would be locked and alarmed.
Ten minutes later, a TechCorp van pulled up by the little door I was nearest to. A workman got out and strolled over to talk to the guard. The guard contacted somebody over his HUD, then nodded at the workman. The workman went back to the van, opened the hatch, and unloaded a trolley with what looked like media equipment: speakers, floodlights, video projectors.
Finally it looked like I might have caught a break. I got ready with the phone. The media guy locked up again and wheeled the trolley to the side door. The guard frisked him, then sifted through the stuff on his cart. They talked again for a few seconds, and bingo! The guard reached over and opened the door.
I typed ‘Go’ and held my finger poised above the phone. The guard stood aside and held the door open, and the media
guy wheeled the trolley towards it. As soon as the trolley was blocking the door, I hit the ‘send’ button.
All hell broke loose. Alarms sounded, lights flashed, and I could hear shouting inside the building. The guard talked to somebody on his HUD, then rushed toward the main entrance. The trolley and the media guy were left still blocking the door.
I jumped up with the gun in my hand and ran toward him, taking a route I’d already picked out to avoid the cameras. The media guy was standing there, stunned. I pointed the gun at him and shouted, “Get lost!”
He put a hand on the trolley.
“Leave it!” I yelled.
He put his hands up and ran towards his van.
I shoved the gun in my belt, pushed the trolley out of the way, and rushed through the door.
☼
I tore down the hallway, avoiding the cameras. Alarms blared from several locations in the building, and both the emergency and the regular building lights were flashing.
“Good job, Richie,” I said under my breath.
I wondered what the media guy would do. I hoped he was scared enough to take off and not say anything, but I had to assume that the security people knew about me. At least I was inside.
There was nobody around. I guess they were all dealing with what they assumed was some kind of emergency. A sign ahead said ‘Conference Room One’. I found the door. Big surprise — it was locked. It had a small window in it. I stood on tip-toes and peered inside. It was a small theater. There were rows of chairs and a stage at the front with a lectern. I guessed that the meeting they were planning would probably happen here.
I looked up. A balcony wrapped around the room at the next level. There were stairs leading up to it. It might make a good hiding place. I was debating whether to sneak up there when the alarm suddenly stopped, and the lights quit flashing.
I panicked. I felt like the whole of SecureCorp were going to descend on me at any second. Without the alarms it was eerily quiet. I was too exposed down here. I took the stairs to the next floor. A hallway running parallel with the back of the meeting room had two doors spaced evenly along it. I rushed to the first one and tried the handle. It was locked, but it had a window like the other one. I looked inside. It was an entrance to the balcony.
So far nobody else had showed up. I gave up on the balcony and ran down the hall looking for another place to hide. I turned corner into another corridor. On the left wall was a door marked ‘Maintenance’. No window in this one, but light was pulsing off and on through the crack underneath it.
A card scanner with a red light was mounted beside the locking mechanism. I put my hand on the cards in my pocket. They were warm. I thought about the melded card. If it was partly a Vita Aeterna card… But the beacon would tell them where I was. I took out the protective bag still holding the cards, held the open end around the detector, and passed the melded card over the surface.
The card was changing — the surface swimming in colours that seemed to be coalescing into some kind of image. I didn’t have time to worry about what was happening. I looked over at the detector. Its light turned green and there was a click inside the lock.
I tried the handle. It turned. I opened the door.
There were footsteps and shouts heading toward me. I stepped inside and shut the door. The room was jammed with electrical panels, communications boards, and heating equipment — a maintenance room. Two or three large ducts ran up to the ceiling. Suddenly the lights quit blinking. I heard the click of the auto-lock on the door and stared down at the open bag still in my hand. A few seconds later footsteps of several people ran past. Someone tried the door handle. I held my breath. It was now locked. More footsteps rushed away and I exhaled deeply.
But why had it unlocked it for me — and who locked it again behind me?
There was a grate in the ceiling for the ventilation system. I stacked a couple of boxes on top of each other, climbed up, and pushed on it. It lifted easily. I wasn’t high enough to see inside. I stacked another box and poked my head up through the hole. Air ducts, big enough for me to squeeze into, branched off in several directions.
There was still shouting and the pounding of feet in the distance. I figured I was dead if I stepped outside the door. There was nothing else here, so the ducts looked like my only choice. All my life I hated being such a little runt. For once I was glad. I hoisted myself into the duct opening and pulled the grate back into place. After taking a few seconds to visualize the position of the theater I’d passed earlier, I moved in that direction. Occasionally I’d pass other grates in the ceilings of different rooms.
The running and shouting had died away now. All was silent. I peered down through a ceiling grate above the balcony I’d passed earlier. There was another one just ahead — one that I guessed would give me a clear shot at the stage.
CHAPTER 35
The Meeting
A door opened somewhere below, in the direction of the outside hallway. I pressed my back against the duct. People started shuffling into the theater, and mumbling voices filled the space below. For ten minutes I lay there, frozen. Soon they’d all be seated and the room would be quiet.
Shit! I thought, as it occurred to me that I should have been heading for the closer grate while there was still noise to cover the sound. I started moving now. I’d hardly gone anywhere when the shuffling and talking died down and the room went silent. Now I was stuck about a quarter of the way from the balcony grate and the one nearer the stage. The light pouring up through the theater grating dimmed, and there was polite applause.
A male voice started speaking. I couldn’t hear what he was saying, but it sounded like some kind of introduction. In a few minutes whoever it was finished talking, and there was a thundering applause. I took advantage of the noise and slid closer to the grate near the stage. By the time the applause died down I was about two-thirds of the way there. The new arrival at the podium started speaking. I could catch snippets of what he was saying.
I heard. “…slip through our fingers.”
I took a chance and edged slowly toward the grate. In a few minutes, I was close enough to see the stage and the speaker at the lectern. The hair at the back of my neck rose, as I recognized him from countless appearances on HoloTV, and on posters everywhere I went.
It was Charles Wickham — the CEO of SecureCorp, the head of the CCE, and the force behind Vita Aeterna — the man I was here to kill.
Several other men and women were lined up on the stage behind him. I recognized the uniforms some of them were wearing: SecureCorp, TechCorp, MediCorp.
Where Chuck’s face was smarmy and devious, Wickham looked downright evil. His eyes were like bullet holes, black and empty. At one point, he stopped talking and lifted his head. He seemed to be staring right at me. I froze. I was sure nobody could see me from down there, but…
He lowered his head again. I relaxed a little.
“This is an unprecedented opportunity,” he continued. “Never before has such a multiple been available for our study.”
I shivered. I had a bad feeling I knew what he was talking about.
Wickham finally shut up and went to sit in an empty chair, as one by one the others on stage got up and talked. They sounded like scientists or doctors or something. They went on for about an hour. I couldn’t catch all they were saying, but the overall gist seemed to be that whatever they were trying to do wasn’t going very well. With each speaker Wickham’s expression got angrier.
I heard the final guy say: “It’s as if an insurmountable barrier has been placed in our way, a barrier that we cannot cross — as if God has drawn a line in the sand and said ‘this far and no further’.”
This really seemed to piss Wickham off. His face turned red. He stood up and grabbed the back of the chair beside him, and for a minute I thought he was going to lift it up and throw it at the guy.
Wickham finally got ahold of himself, and said: “That is completely unacceptable. We control our fate. Nothing i
s insurmountable. That’s just a pathetic excuse for failure.”
The scientist looked scared. “We’ve been working like slaves—”
“Well work harder!” Wickham shouted him down. He pounded his fist on the back of the chair. “And find the boy! He’s the key! Our sources tell us he’s headed this way. How can one pissy little low-life shit evade the whole of SecureCorp?”
A couple of the people on stage bowed their heads. The SecureCorp guys tried to avoid his gaze.
Wickham strode up to the lectern, pushed the scientist guy away, and spoke again. “Some of you are lucky enough to have Appraisals that could allow you to live productive lives for well over one hundred years…” He scanned around the room. “Don’t jeopardize that gift by continuing to fail me!”
As Wickham was shouting I edged my way the final distance to the grate. I was now looking straight down onto the stage. He was no more than ten meters away. He paused, and there was silence around the room. Somebody at one of the tables cleared their throat. It looked like Wickham was wrapping up. He’d be leaving the stage within a few minutes.
I worked the gun out of my belt, released the safety, and gripped it in my hand. He was right in front of me, but I figured the mesh of the grate would deflect, maybe even stop, a bullet. From the one I’d climbed through at first, I knew the grates were held in place by a set of clips. If I pushed hard enough on the one below me it would fall out and I’d have a perfect line of sight. But as soon as the grate fell everybody would know I was there.
I realized that I’d been naive about this mission. In the back of my mind, I’d been telling myself I could take out Wickham and somehow still escape. Now it was obvious that there was no way I’d get out of here if I took the shot. I had to choose, and I didn’t have much time. Tears welled in my eyes. For a second I considered going down there and giving myself up. How long could I keep on running?
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