Ultraviolet

by Joseph Robert Lewis

  “So listen,” he said. “I’ve got good news and bad news. Which do you want first?”

  “Bad news.”

  “Okay, well, the bad news is that there’s another standard warrant out for your arrest now. It looks like Cygnus is pressing criminal charges for smashing those drones, and they’re publishing lots of photos of you, with and without the helmet, so you’re going to need to keep your head down.”

  “Nothing surprising there. What’s the good news?”

  “The good news is that one of your fans just found your friend Mercedes.”

  “What?” I stopped walking. “Are you sure?”

  “Yeah, I just got a message from a woman who works at Cygnus East, and she said she’s pretty sure there’s a young Latina woman being detained in the conference room right down the hall from where she sits.”

  “Wait. This tip is coming from someone who works for Cygnus?”

  “Yep. Sounds like she saw your little aerial show just now and finally got up the courage to say something. I’ll follow up and see how legit she is, but for now it’s our best lead.”

  “You do that. Lux, bike.” The bike appeared and I got on.

  “Where are you going?”

  “To Cygnus East. If Mercy is really there, I’m not going to leave her there one minute longer.”

  Chapter 9

  Allies

  It was still mid-afternoon with the sun blazing overhead and plenty of people and bicycles in the streets, but I didn’t care. After my flight over the harbor, I was feeling almost as invincible as I really was. After all, it was one thing to have holographic armor that made me bulletproof, but it was something else to actually trust that armor to save my life when people were shooting at me.

  Traffic was light and I had no trouble getting through downtown in the middle of the day, weaving around slower riders and parked cars. I saw hands wave as I flashed by, and a few cyclists tried to keep up with me, smiling and waving. I waved back, and streaked away.

  I called Felix again. “Any news?”

  “More of the same. Are you really going to try to get Mercedes out right now? In the middle of the day?”

  “Yep. It’s my fault she’s in there.”

  “No, it’s Cygnus’s fault she’s in there. Remember that,” he said. “You’re not responsible for the shit they pull. That’s their choice. All the paper pushers, all the security guys, they’re the ones who get up every morning and decide to do bad things to people all day long.”

  I nodded. “Okay. I’ll try to keep that in mind.”

  “I’m serious.” He paused. “I wish there was more I could do to help. I hate just giving you tips and then sitting here, waiting to find out if you’re okay.”

  “Felix, without you, I’d probably be in a private prison right now. You know that, right?” I frowned. I wished we could be having the conversation in person so I could see his face. “If it weren’t for you, I would have made those spare gloves and handed them over to Susquehanna, and then they probably would have made me disappear. You’ve already saved me, and now you’re about to save my friend too.”

  “I just… I just want to help.”

  “You are. Big time,” I said. “Listen, after I get Mercy home, how about you find me a place to crash for the night, and then meet me there. We can talk, and eat.”

  “That sounds good.”

  “Good.” I blew out a long breath. It had been a while since I asked a guy out, and I wasn’t sure if this really qualified, but it was the best I could do right now. “Okay, so I’m going to go break into an office building in broad daylight. Wish me luck.”

  “Good luck, Carmen.”

  I shot across town, often going the wrong way on one-way streets, and cruised into the east neighborhoods. I had only been in the east side a handful of times, mostly when I was much younger and dumber. There were bad spots all over Baltimore, but this was one big bad area. It had always been poor, but several companies had come in and steamrolled whole residential blocks to make room for industrial facilities. The Patterson Recycling Plant now stood on what had once been a park with a bad reputation for hookers and drugs, but now it was just another dangerous plant with a bad reputation for worker injuries and deaths.

  Cygnus East was a small compound just north of the recycling center. The parking lot was surrounded by a concrete wall, and the wall was topped with a wire fence, and cameras sat on poles high above the fence, slowly sweeping around and around to watch the grounds. Behind the walls and fences, the campus itself consisted of two identical buildings, both very boring concrete cubes striped with dark glass windows.

  Crap. Which building is she in?

  I called Felix and asked the question out loud, and after ten minutes of typing and chatting, he came back and said, “The left one. Fifth floor. The conference room is named Canton.”

  “Okay. And you trust this woman?”

  “I think so. Her profiles all look very real, right down to the drunken party pics from high school. She’s been working there for six years now, assistant to the deputy director of something-or-other.”

  “Right, well, I guess that’ll have to be good enough. I’m going in.”

  There was one gate through the wall, and there were two guards at the gate, so I headed around to the back of the compound. “Lux, stilts, four yards.”

  I shot up into the air on my holo-stilts and then stepped forward onto the concrete wall, inches away from the wire fence and right below one of the camera poles. I got rid of the stilts and summoned a holo-knife, which cut a nice hole in the fence, and then I sliced through the center of the pole and whatever cables were in there. The camera stopped rotating and I stepped through the fence and dropped to the grass inside the wall.

  There were at least a dozen cars in the parking lot, all of them new, but none of them looked like the black sedan that Frost had driven when he grabbed my parents. I hoped that was a good sign.

  There was no guard and no guard desk in the lobby of the left building, so I walked straight in and found the stairwell, and headed up.

  I guess all the security is focused on the wall.

  When I got to the fifth floor, I leaned against the stairwell door, listening for any signs of life, especially life that might be nearby. I did hear voices, but they were faint, so I cracked the door an inch and peeked out.

  Empty hallway.

  “Lux, clear.”

  I hoped my clothes looked decent enough that I could find the conference room before someone stopped me. I had completely dried out from my dip in the harbor, but I still smelled like oil and fish. I stood up straight and started striding down the hall, trying for all the world to act like I belonged there and had somewhere important to be.

  I marched past three private offices containing people, and then past about two dozen workstations in an open area where only half a dozen people were working. No one glanced up. And then I was in another hallway, passing closed doors with names like “Fells Point” and “Butcher’s Hill”. I’d found the conference rooms.

  My phone buzzed, but I didn’t answer. I didn’t want to make any noise, not even a whisper.

  Near the end of the hall was a door marked “Canton”. I reached for the handle, but hesitated. I listened to the door, but couldn’t hear anything inside. Was Mercy alone in there? Should I knock, or barge in, or what?

  I tried the handle. Locked.

  I knocked softly. No answer.

  My phone buzzed again. I glanced at it. Felix.

  In a minute.

  I cast a guilty look down the hall behind me. Someone could step out at any moment and see me.

  “Lux, knife.”

  I sliced through the gap between the door and the frame and felt the lock break. I opened the door and slipped inside.

  It was empty. Just a long table and a few chairs on wheels. No people. No signs of people. Nothing. Frowning, I took out my phone and called Felix back. “There’s no one here,” I whispered.

/>   “I know. I was trying to call you. The woman just sent me a message. They just moved Mercedes about ten minutes ago.”

  “What? Where?”

  “I don’t know. Just get out of there.”

  “Okay.”

  I slipped back out into the hall, planning to retrace my steps. I made it as far as the open space with the workstations before someone said, “Excuse me.”

  I kept walking.

  “Excuse me, young lady, stop right there.”

  I grimaced and stopped, and glanced over my shoulder. “Me?”

  “Yes, you,” said a heavy-set man in a blue suit. “Are you looking for someone? Where are you supposed to be?”

  “I’m…” My mind went blank. I guess I’m not really cut out for the spy game.

  “Ronnie!”

  The suit and I both looked over at the woman waving from one of the workstations. “Hey, Ronnie, I’m all set. Thanks for waiting.”

  “Uhm. No problem,” I said as calmly as I could.

  The perky redhead hurried over, all smiles. “Pete, this is my friend Veronica. We’re just going to pop out for a minute for a pretzel across the street.”

  Pete nodded and strode away, as though the business of pretzels was far beneath his pay grade. I glanced at the woman’s ID badge and saw her name was Carol. “So, how’s your day going?”

  “Pretty good, same old.”

  We walked over to the elevators, pressed the button, and got in. As soon as the doors closed, I started to ask her if she was the tipster, but she shook her head sharply at me, still smiling brightly. I glanced around and saw the camera in the corner above us.

  “What’d you have for lunch?” I asked. “I had fish again.”

  “Ugh, fish. I can’t stand fish anymore.”

  The doors opened and we walked out across the lobby and into the parking lot. We kept chatting about food all the way to the gate and past the frowning guards, and across the street to the food truck selling, among other things, hot pretzels.

  Only when we were around on the far side of the truck, did Carol stop smiling. “Oh my God, that was tense. Are you okay?”

  “Yeah, I’m fine. Thanks. I take it you were the one who saw my friend?”

  “I did!” Carol was suddenly a very different woman. She looked ten years older and deeply angry at every word coming out of her mouth. “I saw them hurry her out of the conference room and into the elevator, and then I watched from the window as they put her in a car and drove off. They went that way.” She pointed west. “Sorry, that’s all I know.”

  My heart fell a little bit. I really thought I was about to save Mercy, and now I was right back where I was an hour ago.

  “But it was a company car, so take this.” Carol pressed a dime-drive into my hand. “This will give you the GPS of all the company cars. Maybe you can use that to find them.”

  I stared at the drive. “Thank you. Thank you so much. But… why are you helping me? You could get in a lot of trouble.”

  She gave me a cold look. “My father worked at the old Howard Landfill, until he died seven years ago.”

  “I’m so sorry.”

  “They say he was hit by a truck on the highway just off the Landfill property, so his death wasn’t work related, so my mother never got any death benefits. But I heard from some of his friends that he was killed on the work site, and Howard Enterprises covered it up so there wouldn’t be any safety inspection, and so they wouldn’t have to pay up to my mother. Bastards.”

  “I’m really sorry. If there’s anything I can do…”

  “Howard, Cygnus, they’re all the same. I want you to make these people pay for what they’re doing to us.”

  I looked into her eyes and saw so much anger, so much pain, all wrapped up in a shell of fear and exhaustion. “I will. I promise.”

  “Thank you.”

  I started walking away, glancing back several times to make sure that Carol got back inside the compound without any trouble. And then I climbed on my bike and headed back west with the tiny dime-drive tucked safely away in my pocket.

  I swung north up the expressway for a few minutes and then dove off into some old neighborhood I had never been in before. With the bike and armor shut down, I walked off the road into some trees and down a little hill where no one could see me, and sat on a stump. My phone linked with the dime-drive the moment I connected them, and I found the GPS app ready to go. It displayed a simple map of the city in pale blue lines and then flashed several dozen white dots.

  So, those are the Cygnus company cars. Now, which one took Mercy?

  I scrolled the timeline backward and the dots began to move, crawling across the thin lines of the city streets. I kept my eye on the east side, right next to the Patterson Plant, and waited for one of the dots to back up to the Cygnus East compound. When the dot arrived, I tapped it and got a serial number.

  Got you.

  Then I played the tracking data forward in time, watching the little white dot that had Mercy inside winding its way across the city and then up the expressway, past the exit I had taken, almost all the way up to the beltway. The dot stopped. I checked the time. It was current.

  That’s where she is now.

  I frowned at the map.

  That’s the Cygnus North office. That’s where Frost took me to meet with Brian. Maybe he had them bring her to him too. But why? To interrogate her? She doesn’t know anything. But then, they don’t know that. And they might not believe that.

  I punched the ground next to me.

  I pulled out my phone. “Hey Felix, she wasn’t at the East campus, but I know where she is now.”

  “That’s great. Can you get to her?”

  “I think so. Any more progress with the fan mail? Does anyone know where Dom is?”

  “Nothing about Dom yet. All I’ve got right now is about eight hundred messages from guys debating whether or not you’re hot enough for them to score with.”

  I rolled my eyes. “So what’s the tally?”

  “The majority seems to think you’re hot.”

  “Good to know.” I trudged up the hill to the road. “Anything else?”

  “Just a lot of news reports on your big air show this morning. I’m seeing the name Ultraviolet just as much as Carmen Zhao, if not more.”

  “Neat. Remind me to give my PR manager a raise.”

  He laughed. I liked it when he laughed.

  “Are we still on for dinner tonight?” I asked.

  “Yeah. I think I’ve got a lead on a guy who’ll let you crash on his couch. He seems to think he makes a wicked lasagna. His words, not mine.”

  “It’s a date. I’ll call you when I’ve got Mercy.”

  My bike flashed to life and I flashed away on the highway, racing around the slow trucks and the slower cyclists. I tried to focus on Mercedes and figuring out how I was going to rescue her, but I kept thinking about Felix instead. There was a part of me that felt pretty sorry for myself, for losing my job and my home and my friends, and that part of me really wanted to stop running around and just go sit on the floor in Felix’s room and talk about movies and act like everything was okay.

  I really wanted to.

  But I can’t. Not until Mercy and Dom are safe.

  I rolled up outside the Cygnus North building a few minutes later and walked into the lobby with my tactical armor on, all flat black and glowing dreamily at the edges, like violet fog rippling off my body. I walked straight up to the guard’s desk and said, “Tell Brian Rosewater that Carmen Zhao is here to see him. And tell him to bring Mercedes Ortiz with him, it should save us some time, and save him some windows.”

  “I’m going to need to see some ID,” the guard said testily.

  “Lux, sword two.” The enormous fantasy sword in the shape of a pillar of fire appeared in my right hand. “Here. Here’s my ID.”

  The guard frowned at me. “ID.”

  I shook my sword at him.

  He kept frowning. Not in an evil or
mean way, just in a tired-old-man sort of way, and the longer I looked at him, the more guilty I felt about trying to be a loud-mouth showoff.

  “Lux, sword off.” I pulled out my wallet and showed him my actual photo ID.

  He glanced at it and then picked up the phone.

  Two minutes later, the elevator doors opened and Brian stepped out with the very bland and yet strangely sinister Mister Frost beside him. I looked around quickly to make sure there weren’t other men in dark suits closing in around the exits. There weren’t.

  “Carmen, nice to see you again. I believe you remember Mister Frost.” Brian stood over by the guard’s desk. He looked tired and very unhappy. “I assume from your message that you are ready to surrender your technology and research to us in exchange for the release of a certain individual.”

  “No, I’m just here to pick up my friend,” I said. “Let her go.”

  “I can’t do that, Carmen.” He sighed. “You have to understand, this is a matter of law. You broke a contract.”

  “And you kidnapped innocent people!”

  “They were lawfully detained under the Espionage Act, and you know it.”

  “If you don’t let Mercedes and the rest of my friends go, then I’m just going to come upstairs and find them for myself, and I really don’t care how many doors or windows or walls I have to rip open to find them. I hope you believe that I’ll do it, and I hope you know you can’t stop me.”

  “Carmen…” Brian rubbed his eyes. “Carmen, if you don’t stop all this, they’re going to turn this matter over to someone else, someone a little less concerned with following protocols and procedures and a little less concerned with whether or not people get seriously hurt. Do you understand what I’m saying?”

  “Brian, if you don’t release your prisoners, then this morning’s little show at the harbor is just going to be the first of a hundred stunts to show everyone that they don’t have to be afraid of your drones and your private police.”

  “You think you’re hurting the company?” Brian shook his head. “They had three new drones on station over the harbor within twenty minutes of that little show of yours. I’m told we have thousands of those things in storage. You’ll never knock them out for more than a few minutes.”