Half Life (Russell's Attic Book 2)

by SL Huang

  He breathed a sigh of relief. “Thanks. A lot. I owe you one.”

  “Damn right you do.” He owed me a lot more than just one. “Speaking of which, do you have anything on my head case yet?”

  “Just the basics. Noah Warren, forty-eight years old, former party clown and magician—”

  “Former what?” I slammed on the brakes to keep from rear-ending a blue BMW.

  “Magician,” said Checker. “And clown. You know, entertaining at kids’ parties, that sort of thing.”

  “Seriously?”

  “Party clowns exist, so some people have to be them, Cas. Shall I go on?”

  Clowns. Sheesh. “Yeah.”

  “He did that pretty steadily for years after graduating from college, but then he dropped off—I don’t know if the gigs dried up or he just didn’t want to anymore. For the past decade or so he’s bounced around, mostly odd jobs—carpentry, custodial work, event security, that sort of thing.”

  “What about the wife?”

  “This is where it gets interesting. Constance Denise Rayal—I guess she kept her maiden name—is a bona fide genius. I mean, most of her recent work is behind trade secrecy, but I was just reading her graduate thesis and it’s nothing short of brilliant. She got headhunted by Arkacite decades back, right when they first started making waves in tech, and worked there until five months ago—”

  “Is that when she died?”

  “Her stated reason for resigning was medical leave.”

  Whatever illness it was must have killed her shortly after she left work, then. “What did she have?”

  “I haven’t gotten there yet. Is it important?”

  “Doubt it. Just curious. What about the daughter?”

  “Geez, a little patience. I haven’t finished on Warren and Arkacite. He tried to bring criminal kidnapping charges against them. When that didn’t work, he filed suit pro se—”

  “Pro se?”

  “It means he did it himself instead of hiring a lawyer. He’s suing for ownership of all his wife’s work.”

  “Shouldn’t he own it anyway if she’s dead?”

  “No. Work product—the company owns it. He doesn’t even have a case.”

  Why would Warren care about her work? “He thinks they’re hiding something,” I guessed. “He thinks they’ve got his daughter and his wife’s files will tell him where.”

  “Or he’s trying to get a foot in the door somehow. Or maybe he’s just trying to annoy them until they cave in on a deal to make him go away,” suggested Checker. “Who knows? You should ask him.”

  “I will.” I readjusted the phone on my shoulder as traffic started to pick up again. “So what did you find on the daughter? Any evidence of a Liliana?”

  “No, you were right—not a whiff. No birth certificate or adoption papers. No school records. No doctor’s visits. They had a son about fifteen years ago, but he died when he was only a few years old, and they never had any other children. The wife’s mother’s name was Liliana, so a kid named after her would make sense, but I can’t find a single shred of evidence for a daughter.”

  “Maybe she was a homeless kid they took in or something?”

  “Then why wouldn’t he tell you that?”

  “Because he’s not right in the head?”

  “If she exists, I should be able to find something,” muttered Checker. “I don’t like this.”

  “He’s probably just crazy and it’s a dead-end case,” I said. Checker didn’t say anything. “What’s the matter?”

  “The last time I couldn’t find someone’s family in the system was Courtney Polk.”

  Right.

  The ominous shadow of possibility I’d shrugged off in the coffee shop settled blackly over me as I inched toward the next traffic light. The Pithica case had started out with similar small inconsistencies. Courtney Polk had been convinced she had a sister named Dawna, but it turned out Dawna was literally a psychic who had planted the relationship in Courtney’s head—and then used it to manipulate the girl into drug trafficking and murder. And that had been the least of what she’d been up to. We’d eventually put a serious dent in Dawna’s world-dominating plans—and in the plans of the vast organization known as Pithica—but the worst part was, I still wasn’t sure we’d done the right thing by making that decision. After all, us stopping them was probably the primary reason violent crime had spiked in the city lately.

  I wasn’t proud of the outcome. I didn’t think Checker was either. We tended not to talk about it.

  I shook myself, hitting the accelerator with more force than necessary as the light turned green. The car gunned and jolted. “I don’t think this is the same thing,” I said into the phone. “What possible motive would anyone have for convincing Noah Warren he has a five-year-old daughter? Did you find any connection to Pithica?”

  “No, but that doesn’t mean anything. And who can ever tell what their motives might be anyway? Plus the whole ‘superpowers’ thing you say he was on about—if Pithica didn’t qualify for that, then I don’t know who would. I don’t—”

  “Warren didn’t say ‘superpowers,’ exactly,” I admitted. “He just kept saying she was ‘special’ and that’s why the company wants her.”

  “Special how?”

  “Hell if I know. But it can’t be the same thing, can it? You found who Dawna was as a kid, and she wasn’t a psychic then. At least, not a real one.”

  “Do we know that for sure?” he asked uncomfortably. “Maybe she was born with her powers. Maybe that’s why she got so famous as a kid in the first place.”

  I turned toward the 10 freeway, flooring the car through a gas station to avoid another stoplight and inserting myself rudely back into the flow of traffic. “This isn’t Pithica’s MO anyway,” I said to Checker, more loudly than I meant to. “Come on. If someone like Dawna was trying to delete a little girl, the work would be seamless. Pithica wouldn’t leave an angry father running around making a mess all over everything. This can’t be them.” I had to keep believing that. Dawna had gotten to me, too, in the end—if this had to do with Pithica, my own brain wasn’t going to let me pursue it.

  I yanked the wheel over to get around a slow-moving bus, cutting off a white Jeep in the process. The driver leaned on his horn. I leaned on mine back, harder.

  “What’s going on?” demanded Checker. “Cas, are you driving?”

  “No.”

  “And it would take the laws of physics bending to make you crash anyway,” he conceded with a sigh.

  I didn’t feel like talking anymore. “I’m going to Arkacite’s HQ,” I said. “Text me if you find anything else.”

  “Will do.”

  “Who’s their top dog?”

  “The current CEO is Imogene Grant, and it looks like she does base herself mostly out of the LA facility. But you’ll probably want Constance Rayal’s boss, Albert Lau. The address you gave me, seventh floor.”

  “Thanks.” I ended the call, pulled onto the freeway, and drove west.

  Arkacite was enough of a household name that I’d vaguely known they had a headquarters in Venice, but I’d never had reason to seek it out. After zigzagging through the streets, I turned onto a broad boulevard lined with soaring skyscrapers mixed in with smaller shops and cheerful green parks. Arkacite’s offices were easy to spot—they were one of the largest buildings, an enormous edifice of white and glass that spiked upward against the clear blue Southern California sky as if it wanted to pierce it.

  After rounding the block twice, I found parking on a side street overseen by majestic old elms. I headed back on foot and walked straight in the front door of Arkacite like I was a perfectly normal citizen.

  And stopped.

  Metal detectors stood sentinel in an impenetrable barrier across the other end of the lobby, security guards manning each one. Gaggles of employees were heading through at the moment, probably returning from lunch on the beach, and each one swiped an ID card across a sensor as he or she swept through.
I slipped to the right and lurked by the drinking fountains, watching.

  I wasn’t observant like Arthur, but one thing I kick ass at is seeing patterns. I didn’t want to break in today—that would require too much planning, and I still didn’t know what I was looking for. I’d gone around and around with Warren in our interview about who, exactly, was supposed to be holding his daughter, and where, and the only thing he could tell me was that it was the company: the company, the company, the company. I wasn’t in a good mood about this—my jobs usually required minimal investigation, and knocking on doors wasn’t something I enjoyed. That was what the world had people like Arthur for. But in the absence of other intel, I wanted to poke the beehive and see what happened, and that meant I had to get in.

  The people streaming in and out of the lobby became faceless data points flashing color-coded through my senses—who had keycards, who didn’t, who swiped them and when. Within seconds I’d sussed out the logic of the lobby. People without cards went to the desk, where they signed in, showed IDs, and received guest passes. People with cards swiped at the turnstiles before the metal detectors and again at the elevator bank, though only one card was needed to call an elevator and the rest of the folks got a free ride. The turnstiles were the only challenge.

  But there was an accessibility gate next to the turnstiles, and people crowded through that as well, individual employees and visitors but also tour groups and school groups—apparently helping build the backbone of modern society made your headquarters a tourist attraction. Mostly the visitors swiped their guest passes as they went by, but a fair number just tailgated through, and nobody seemed to notice. Their data points popped up in my vision, highlighted. That was my way in.

  I mapped out the movements. Where the tailgaters were in relation to the group so the gate would still be open, so it would seem natural that they wouldn’t reach for their cards.

  Perfect.

  I went back out onto the plaza in front of the building and lounged against a pillar by one of the raised banks of hedges, out of range of any security cameras peering through from the lobby. I watched the crowd flowing in and out from the street for a few minutes, the smiling lunchgoers and some Japanese tourists taking pictures. As soon as nobody was looking my way, I dropped my gun into the hedge, and the spare magazines and knives followed a moment later. I thought about dumping my phone and keys too, but figured it might make me stand out if I didn’t have those.

  De-metaled—at least mostly—I walked back into the lobby and let the mathematics of human motion play out in front of me. As a tour group milled by in a disorganized jumble, I attached myself exactly at the middle back of the group and walked straight in through the accessibility gate, no card-swipe needed. Then I followed them through the metal detector, dumping and retrieving my phone and keys along with everyone else. The security guards manning the trays didn’t even look up. One of the sleek steel elevators slid to a stop as the crowd flowed through, and I joined the mass of people jostling inside, as anonymous as everyone else.

  I was in.

  On the elevator, I bumped up against someone with an employee ID card who’d pushed the button for floor sixteen. Mathematics gives me very nimble fingers, since the numbers tell me exactly which moves will disturb a person’s clothing or skin—I’d make a fortune as a pickpocket if I ever felt like switching careers. The employee wouldn’t realize her ID was missing until she was nine floors above me.

  The elevator dinged at seven, and I stepped out. I had to swipe out of the elevator bay, but that wasn’t a problem anymore.

  The seventh floor was just as sleek and sure of itself as the lobby. The decor was all bright modern colors and patterned carpets. Glass-walled offices were abuzz with activity, and employees crossed briskly back and forth to deliver important pieces of paper from one cubicle to another. I never understood how people lived in offices; they always reminded me of tiny human-shaped pets running on an enormous hamster wheel, going and going and never getting anywhere new.

  “May I help you?”

  I turned. A short, dark-skinned woman behind a reception desk was smiling at me. She was in her early twenties and was somewhere between curvy and plump, with ruffles on her aubergine blouse and bright eyes that reminded me of Checker’s usual expression. She looked far too chipper to be working in an office building.

  “Yeah,” I said. “I’m looking for Albert Lau.”

  The woman—the nameplate on her desk identified her as one Pilar Velasquez—picked up her phone. “Do you have an appointment?”

  “No,” I said.

  “I’ll see if he’s in. Who should I say is here to see him?”

  “I’m a friend of Constance Rayal’s,” I said.

  Pilar’s expression went from pleasantness to delicious amusement. She put the phone back in the cradle and leaned over her desk conspiratorially. “Two bits of advice,” she said. “First, she pronounced it ‘Rayal’—rhymes with ‘dial’—and second, she went by her middle name, Denise. Want to try again?” She grinned at me.

  Well, at least she wasn’t kicking me out. Damn, I sucked at undercover. “I’m here on behalf of her husband,” I said. “Noah Warren.”

  “Oh.” Pilar pursed her lips, thinking. “I’m pretty sure you have to talk to the lawyers, then. He’s suing the company, you know.”

  “Uh, yeah, I know.”

  “I don’t think I’m supposed to let you through.”

  “You don’t think?”

  She shrugged. “I’m just a temp. Well, I’ve been here almost two years now, but still, technically a temp. What did you say your name is?”

  “I didn’t,” I said.

  “And what did you want with Mr. Lau?”

  “To ask him about Warren’s daughter.”

  “Oh,” she said.

  “You aren’t going to tell me he doesn’t have a daughter?”

  She looked surprised. “He doesn’t? Then why are you asking about her?”

  Right. Why would the receptionist know anything one way or another about the nonexistent daughter? “Can I see Lau, or not?”

  The answer was yes whether or not Pilar said so, but I preferred to do this the easy way. The way that didn’t involve Arkacite’s far-too-dedicated security forces coming in here and bothering me.

  Pilar scrunched up her face as if she were doing a cartoon version of thinking really, really hard. I had no idea what to make of her. “Here’s what I’ll do,” she said, dropping her voice back to that conspiratorial tone as if she lived to troll her employers. “Why don’t you wait over there—” She nodded to a bright fuchsia couch against the wall. “—and I’ll give you a signal when he comes by. Sound good to you?”

  “Oh,” I said. “Uh, sure.”

  She made a shooing noise at me and gestured to the couch, turning back to her work.

  I sank down under a flyer warning me that “INFORMATION LEAKS ARE SERIOUS BUSINESS” and listing all the things employees were not to do or talk about outside the company. A mandate at the bottom read, “If you notice any of these behaviors in a co-worker, notify a superior immediately.”

  Sounded like someone had rat problems. All the metal detectors in the world weren’t going to help them with that.

  I sat waiting and fidgeting, and eventually texted Checker. Got anything new?

  U R MOST IMPATIENT PRSN I KNO, he replied.

  How is that possibly faster? I typed back. I happen to know you’re texting on a keyboard.

  TXTING W PROPR STYLE IS A LOST ART

  I was interrupted in a suitably caustic reply by a snap against the wall next to me. I was on full alert before I saw the rubber band falling to the carpet and Pilar jerking her head in an extremely obvious way at a thin Asian man in a suit who was hurrying out of the back offices with his head in an open folder. He had brown skin and shaggy black hair that didn’t quite seem to fit with his scalp correctly, and he was several sizes too small for his suit—he reminded me of a husk of something that had
been dried out in the sun, all the warmth and moisture sucked away.

  I shot up from the couch and stepped into his path so that he almost collided with me before looking up from his folder. “Mr. Lau?” I asked.

  He recoiled. “Can I help you with something?”

  “I’m here on behalf of Noah Warren,” I said. “He wants his daughter back.”

  A muscle in his cheek twitched. “The official statement of Arkacite Technologies is that all work product created by Denise Rayal as an employee is the property of the company, as per her contractual agreement when she was hired. Beyond that, you will need to speak to our lawyers. Now, I’m afraid I’m late for a—”

  “Did you even listen to what I said?” I demanded. “I’m not here about the damn work product. I doubt Warren cares about it, either. He just wants his daughter back.”

  Albert Lau blinked seven times in rapid succession. “I’m sure I don’t know what you’re talking about.” He tried to push past me.

  I’m not great at figuring out what other people are thinking, but Lau was an even worse liar than I was. “Yes, you do,” I said. I grabbed his arm and spun him around and off balance, so that he staggered against Pilar’s desk. She squealed and pushed backward. “Where is she?”

  Lau squirmed away from me. “Call the police,” he gasped at Pilar.

  I took a deep breath, lifted my hands, and stepped away from him. “It’s okay. It’s okay. I’m leaving.” The last thing I needed to do was get mixed up with the police again. This was one reason I hated jobs that intersected with corporate America—most people I intimidated wouldn’t even think of calling the cops, which made it a lot easier to, well…intimidate them.

  It had been overly optimistic to think I’d find much here. At least I had more information than when I’d arrived, and I’d gotten a feel for the company and its security. I could track down Lau again later, somewhere more isolated.

  I backed away and then angled back toward the elevators, disengaging as quickly as I could without spooking the Arkacite people. “I’ll make sure she leaves,” I heard Pilar soothe her boss as I left.