by Jason Letts
His eyes closed and he resorted to running his hands over the buttons, desperate to reach out to anyone. What was it all for, anyway? When someone answers the phone and doesn’t hear anything, the usual response is to hang up and forget about it.
The phone fell from his limp fingers.
CHAPTER 2
Sierra paced the hallway as if she were trying to wear through the floor’s ceramic tiles. Breathing deeply, trying to think about work, wolfing down some chocolate—nothing could calm her after the possibility of her father’s passing cracked open a hole in her skull and let a horrible vision of the world into her mind.
In the chairs against the wall beside some potted plants, Randall, Taylor, and Taylor’s mother, Melody Hockley, lounged as they waited for news about her father. They were wise to keep quiet about her fidgeting, because even though they looked unhappy, none of them were as distraught as she was. She fought back the urge to grab one of them by the shirt and scream, “And since when did you stop caring if Dad died?”
But they weren’t responsible for her animosity, and she knew she could never express it like that. Above all else, she had to remember that the only way to be vicious was with a smile. If there was one thing her experience had taught her, it was that no one minded being raped so long as she was nice about it.
The only one who wasn’t present with them who should’ve been was Tris, but her mother knew to keep clear of Melody, who was probably only there to see if Dad died anyway. The windfall she would get from his death would be dizzying. Dad had wills and other documents making it clear that she and her brothers would get everything if he died, but Sierra knew firsthand from her work at Fiori Law how fragile paper was if someone else had an eye on the money.
So it must’ve been bittersweet at best for Melody when the nurse approached them and said, “You can see him now.”
Sierra couldn’t get into the hospital room fast enough. She nearly fell over herself rushing through the door, and then the sight of her father in the sterile bed, woozy and covered in bandages, almost blew her back on her ass. Although on some subconscious level she must’ve known it was true, never before had she actually been hit with the realization that her father would die someday.
“Hey, looks like you made it. If you’d wanted to take a vacation, you could’ve just called in sick.”
Randall’s lighthearted words over her shoulder broke her morbid train of thought, and it was just like him to avoid the darker side of what they were seeing, but in truth there was cause to be happy. No matter what else happened, Lowell Bracken would not die this day.
“What?” Lowell whimpered, turning his head. Melody dutifully took his hand. She was a tall, black-haired woman without much shape in her late forties. Sierra found her oppressive to be around, mostly because she sounded like herself at work.
“You’re at the ClawClinic, second floor, room two twenty-six, after coming out of a seven-hour surgery for cardiac arrest and four blocked arteries,” Melody said, though Dad did nothing more than groan and blink. With the rest afterward, it’d been a much longer wait than that.
“Can you hear me, Mr. Bracken?” an overweight doctor with a bushy white mustache said, leaning over the other side of the bed and waiting for Dad’s nod. “You had a heart attack, but you’re going to be all right now.”
Dad grimaced, squirming in the bed.
“An attack? No, I was attacked,” he said, hardly making any sense.
“Yes, a heart attack,” the doctor continued, speaking slowly. “Your high cholesterol levels caused blockages in your arteries. I can give you more details later.”
“When have I ever had high cholesterol?” Dad objected, sounding more lucid. “Someone attacked me.” The doctor peeked at the chart and flipped the pages. He couldn’t have found much.
Act now, feel later. Sierra instantly reached for her phone and went through her contacts. Someone would have to investigate this.
“I’m getting someone to find out exactly what happened,” she said.
“No.” Lowell reached forward toward her, groaning in pain. “No one can know.”
“It’s our people,” she said, but didn’t send the message. He was right, after all; it would be ruinous for them all if word got out. Whether it was his health or an attack, either would have devastating implications for the security and stability of the company. It was a good thing they were at the ClawClinic and not in the city of Ristle, or there’d be no way to keep this quiet.
“Who attacked you?” Taylor asked. Sierra felt bad for him; this had ruined the end of his Crossing celebration. He’d barely had time to change out of his robes and into his street clothes. Dad glanced at the doctor who smiled and left the room.
“’A gift from the Ma Ha’dere’ or something, the scumbag said. His hand had a blue tint to it. He touched my chest, and then this happened.”
Somehow this got Melody riled up. She threw her hands in the air.
“You have to think of your security! I keep telling you not to walk around alone. You’re not invincible!” she intoned, and Sierra shot her a piercing look. It looked like a suspicious overreaction, and the wheels in her mind starting turning with the possibility that Melody might’ve been involved.
“No, I’m not,” Dad agreed. “And it’s got me thinking. What we need is a degree of order in the business world, something that values life over money instead of the other way around. I might’ve been part of the problem, but maybe it’s not too late for me to do better.”
He looked paler than she’d ever seen him. An audible sigh escaped her lips, tapping into so much pent up worry trapped within her, and news of an attack didn’t help. She went to the other side of the bed and put her hand on his shoulder.
“How did I get here?” he asked.
“I got the call from the hospital that you were here,” she said. “They said they picked you up underneath the towers.”
Dad’s eyes bulged and he leaned forward, fighting through the pain.
“Who told them to come get me?”
Sierra looked around at her siblings, neither of whom had an answer. Dad let go of her hand to reach for his pockets, though of course his gown had none.
“Are you looking for your phone? It’s right over here,” Taylor said, spotting some personal items on a nearby shelf. He grabbed it and then turned so they all could see the screen. Some numbers had been punched in, but no call had ever been placed.
“OK, what the fuck is going on?” Randall said, losing his cool. “We don’t know who attacked you and we don’t even know who saved you? This is ridiculous!”
“I don’t have any messages from any employees at the towers,” Sierra said. But she noticed the time on her phone, which brought on a whole new kind of anxiety. “I’d better get on the train if I’m going to make it to work on time, or else Ralph will kill me. I wish I were exaggerating.”
“You haven’t slept all cycle, have you?” Dad asked, and Sierra demurred.
“I’ll be fine. We’ll find out what happened to you, and it sounds like we’ve got a new job too,” she said, mustering a smile. She gave sympathetic nods to her family and Melody and turned to leave. Before she could take more than a step, Dad grasped her wrist and yanked her back.
“You have to be ready,” he said so low that she wondered if anyone else could hear it. Their eyes connected for just a moment, and she knew exactly what he meant.
Those words stuck with her on the train ride to the city, haunting her as they had since she was a child. You have to be ready. But it struck her that, despite her age and the unquantifiable amount of work invested, she wasn’t ready to succeed her father as the head of Bracken Energy.
The pressure in her center mounted. Although Dad had long made it clear to everyone that she was his choice, the uproar if she were thrust into that spot without a proper résumé would be apocalyptic. As for her current position as junior partner at Fiori Law, it was so commonly used as a stepping stone for grooming th
e children of powerful families that people called it the kids’ table, but Sierra couldn’t wait any longer for someone to show her up the ladder. Not when the weight of her family’s expectations was at stake.
Grabbing her portfolio and putting on the lens-less glasses that made her look more studious, Sierra left the train, ascended to the streets of Ristle, and walked the short remaining distance to her building. Sleek skyscrapers all around, the edifice housing Fiori Law was mostly concrete and stone, featuring statues of gargoyles, dragons, and sea monsters at its corners, and altogether had a more imposing presence than the nearby modern architecture.
The long, wide entryway adorned with alabaster columns, porcelain decorations, and ceramic tiles oozed wealth, as did a good many of the occupants who traversed the floor or mingled. Sierra marched to the elevators in the back, unperturbed by the hum of chatter, until a scream and the sight of some commotion ahead struck her.
A man collided face first with the hard tile after flying down the stairs that led from the carpeted elevator hub to the entryway floor. A crack followed by the man’s whimpers rippled through the hall. All talking ceased immediately, and everyone turned to see Ralph Fiori, an egg-shaped balding man, waddling down the steps waving his fist.
“You fucking steal from me? I’ll skin you alive and sell it to the butchers down on Eighteenth Street!”
Ralph kicked the man onto his back and fell on top of him, driving an elbow into his already bruised cheek.
“I’ll sue you,” the man gurgled, causing Ralph’s flushed face to turn apple red.
“Sue me for what?” he hollered, completely unconcerned with the scene he was making. “Everyone here saw you slip down those stairs.”
When he punched the man in the stomach, some blood got on Ralph’s white undershirt. He snarled, showing off yellow, uneven teeth.
“Listen to me. First I’m going to take everything you own. It’s gone, and there’s nothing you can do about it because of the Vendetta Clause. If you make a fuss, I’ll come back for your name. I’ll own that and cast you down with the sewer people. And then, if I ever see your face again, I’ll take that, too, and hang it on the wall with my diplomas. So it’s up to you how far you want this to go. Now fucking get out.”
Once Ralph let go, the man scrambled away, staggered to his feet, and broke into a frantic run for the door, passing Sierra, whose mouth hung open. Ralph was known for his uninhibited outbursts, but rarely did he lay into someone so publicly.
“Mr. Fiori,” she said politely.
“Ahh, Ms. Bracken. How do you do?” he asked, smiling while trying to catch his breath. His face had lost some of its luster.
“May I be of service?”
“Nothing to get in a twist over. Just a sleazy accountant who thought he could skim a little off the top and I wouldn’t notice, but I keep a close eye on the numbers. You can appreciate that, can’t you?”
“I like to think that I can.” Sierra smiled, and together they walked to the elevators. Ralph was a humble boss—a kind soul, even—so long as he wasn’t crossed or employed to destroy someone.
“Just a few minutes until we get started,” he reminded her when she hit the button for her floor.
“I won’t be late,” she said, getting off on the fifteenth floor, which the junior partners and some clerks and research interns occupied. Desks and cubicles in various arrangements sprawled out across the entire floor, but the quadrant with the junior partners’ desks was in the back beyond the copy room.
Passing other desks displaying the engraved name plaques of her peers, she stopped at one near the end that had a plaque reading “Data Whore,” exchanged some papers, and turned back for the elevator.
“Hey Sierra,” said a friendly younger guy named West, who was pushing a mail cart. “How’s the lipstick on my collar look?”
“Looks like you got a little action this weekend. Intriguing,” she said, snickering inwardly.
Apart from the other junior partners, who mostly resented her for coming from a better family, Sierra had a reputation among the office staff as being the attractive, unpretentious girl who could give guys advice about their appearances. It all started on one of her first days when she’d walked in on a couple of them having a raunchy conversation.
“I banged her so hard I’m pretty sure I dislocated her hip. The girl couldn’t walk right for days,” one of them had boasted, barely able to get the words out before he froze at Sierra’s presence.
“If she were any good you’d be the one limping,” she’d said, raising an eyebrow and sharing a laugh with them. Since then she’d coached half the men on the floor to add a gratuitous amount of swagger to their walks, among other things. Making guys buy lipstick and seeing them limp around the office never failed to amuse her.
“What do you say you and I head out for a drink after work?” West asked, and Sierra pursed her lips. There were, however, the inevitable, regrettable advances.
“Actually, I’m in a relationship right now. To tell you the truth, it’s a little abusive,” she said. West looked nonplussed. “Don’t worry, though. I’m not the victim.”
Sierra quickly left West’s company when she caught eyes with another one of the junior partners, a red-haired, wiry man named Raiden Wozniak, who she desperately wanted to avoid meeting in the elevator. In moments she was riding up to the eighteenth floor and focusing her mind on the meeting and the task at hand. Like never before, she needed to excel.
Taking a deep breath, she opened the door into the kids’ table room, which was entirely black. Half the junior partners were already there, and Ralph fiddled with the projector at one end. Sierra slid into one chair at the middle of the table, and a minute later Raiden took the one across from her.
The looks he gave her were uncomfortable, and she avoided returning them while the remaining juniors arrived and Ralph prepared to start.
“All right, let’s make this quick, because I’ve got a lot more to take care of today. We’ve got a new job from a client to target the energy provider Bolt & Keize, seen here in the photographs appearing behind me,” Ralph explained.
“Sounds like someone’s daddy is feeling the heat,” interjected Aimee Graddock, the only other female of the eight junior partners, and a mousy one at that. She could make her snide comments, but nothing would change the fact that she came from a retail family.
“At least it’ll get us out of those stuffy law books for the week,” said Dwyre Folson, a guy with long, braided hair who sat beside Sierra.
“Bolt & Keize,” intoned Ralph, drawing their attention. “I want to eat their brains for breakfast and parade them around town strung up by their nuts, but the client just wants this to be a recon operation. Find their weaknesses, get hard evidence of their mistakes, keep an eye out for sloppy paperwork, and then get a report together for me. Now, what do we know about these guys?”
Sierra had been waiting for the first chance to take the lead on the project, and she didn’t hesitate to pounce.
“Jim—”
“Jim Bolt, a thirty-nine-year-old electrical engineer with a two-year-old daughter named Toria. A year after she was born, his wife died of carbon influx disease, a result of overexposure to microsands in the Seasand Desert. The bulk of their solar operation resides near the city of Rock Shield, just north of the desert.”
Sierra pursed her lips and glared at Raiden for talking over her. The smug expression on his face made it clear he knew what he was doing.
“OK, good. And what about Arnold Keize?” Ralph asked.
Both Sierra and Raiden launched into their spiels simultaneously, spouting off facts about the business mastermind while staring each other down.
“Enough!” Ralph shouted over them. “If we can’t conduct a real meeting without this bullshit, I’ll give you some coloring books and tell you to sit in the corner. Just get out there, do the job, and bring me some information I can use,” he said, storming out.
Regardless of how the m
eeting had gone, Sierra now had a chance to show off her skills.
It was time for the games to begin.
After spending an uncomfortable elevator ride wanting to strangle Raiden, Sierra settled down at her desk and got to work on her computer. There was a flurry of activity as the others dove into the project, making calls or pulling public records, but she had her own ideas about how to crack Bolt & Keize.
Sierra took a deep breath as she logged on to the wire and searched for clues about the network she was trying to reach.
While her peers were doing what they’d always been taught to do—follow the money—Sierra’s familiarity with the energy sector led her to believe she’d have better luck if she followed the parts. If she swam up the supply chain as materials crisscrossed the globe while they were being manufactured, there was sure to be some supplier or some contract that could be bought off and broken. If she could point her father to a crucial leg that would halt B&K’s growth, that might go a long way to impressing Ralph and the Bracken board.
Patiently, she waited for a spike in network traffic that would mask her entry, arranging traps for their employees and assuming control of their wire codes. Then, under the guise of one of their computer technicians, she traipsed through a number of pornography pages to ensure he’d get fired before turning her attention to company orders.
But the process of getting deep enough to access that information was time-consuming. It wasn’t so long ago that the wire wars raged and anyone transmitting information over the open networks was instantly parted from the money in their bank accounts, but now there were safeguards in place that protected most activities. Still, numbers and code were what Sierra lived and breathed, and she knew enough to get around undetected.
Most of the cycle had passed, and Sierra’s exhaustion caught up to her. The volume of orders and the complexity of the grid B&K was building were endless, but she was just about to find the weak link in the chain when her computer screen went dead.