Stealth Power

by Vikki Kestell

  Her anger turned to ice, as did her voice. “What have you done with the phone Bickel used?”

  As the disembodied voice droned on, Cushing’s angry expression gave way to a nervous tic. “And you believe your actions will suffice, Colonel?”

  “Yes, ma’am. With the SIMM card destroyed, the location of the phone’s previous calls cannot be traced.”

  “You understand that this in no way excuses the lax, undisciplined manner in which this incident occurred.”

  “I do, General. I take full responsibility for the situation. My IT staff has created a ‘dead zone’ around the, er, facility—no Internet and no cell service in or out. They have locked down the land lines so that they have no access to long distance services. And, of course, I have removed and replaced the personnel. The new guards have strict instructions: They are to have no personal interactions of any kind with the prisoner.”

  “See that they don’t, Colonel—if you value your wings.”

  She slammed the phone onto its receiver and stared into space, thinking. As she thought, she jabbed the pencil’s broken tip into the desk’s surface.

  ~~**~~

  Chapter 5

  As exhausted as I was after my expedition to Walmart, I slept well—at first. But then I dreamed.

  I dreamed of Emilio, scrunched down in the shrubs in front of his uncle’s house, doing his best to stay out of the way, out from underfoot while Mateo’s gang partied. I dreamed of his thin, bare arms, of him shivering where he crouched in the bushes. I dreamed of him hungry. Cold. Neglected. Afraid. Unloved.

  Caught up in the clutches of the dream, I rushed to my little house and baked a frozen pizza for Emilio and brought him one of my old jackets—but when I called to him, he wouldn’t come out to take them. Instead, he pushed farther and farther into the bushes. I reached for him, but he was beyond me, the little hidey-hole deepening and Emilio disappearing into its dark depths.

  I sat up in a sweat.

  I must know how Emilio is doing. If Abe still has him. If he is all right. If Abe and Zander are okay.

  I drifted back to an uneasy slumber sometime later.

  ***

  When morning came, I woke up in a rush, unsure of where I was or what time of day it was, but with my concern for Emilio at the forefront. Even as I wondered how he was faring, my other pressing concerns came barreling back, too: procuring a new identity and a car. Finding Dr. Bickel ended up dead last.

  “I have too many competing priorities.”

  My worry returned to Emilio. Zander. Zander would be able to tell me how Emilio was doing.

  I decided to table my other needs for a few hours while I set up a means of communicating with Zander. I wanted to make sure we could connect in case of emergency.

  I checked the three phones: They had full charges. I scavenged through Dr. Bickel’s abandoned office and found a partial sheet of colored labels. I picked up one of the phones and stuck a piece of blue label on it. Then I called the activation number.

  This phone is only for talking to Zander.

  The second phone was for him on his end, but I had to find a way to deliver the phone. I scrawled a short, cryptic note.

  Keep this phone hidden with the ringer turned off. Call me only at prearranged times or in case of emergencies. We can text to set up call times. Memorize my number. Do not add it to your phone book. Delete calls and text logs after each use.

  I didn’t sign the note, of course, but I did jot my number at the end before I wrapped the phone, its charger, and my note in a crumpled piece of brown paper and stuffed it into one of my bags. With the bag slung over my shoulders, I was headed out the rear door when the nanomites set up a fuss. The racket in my head was deafening.

  I backtracked to the bare wall. “What is it?” I demanded.

  TERMINAL

  “Yeah, I know. I’ll set it up when we get back.”

  I again moved toward the back door, but my answer had set them off. They chipped with a fury.

  “Listen to me,” I told them, “I need to go to Zander’s office and leave a phone for him. When we get back. I’ll set up the laptop first thing.”

  That assurance did not sit well with them, but as I’d told them before, I drive the boat.

  I headed for the nearest bus stop.

  ***

  The chiseled stone profile of Downtown Community Church had been part of the Albuquerque skyline for generations. It sat on the intersection of two major thoroughfares just off I-25. Right on the city transit route.

  I got off the bus and waltzed up to the office doors—apparently with misguided confidence.

  “Nano. Unlock the door.”

  Nothing.

  Nada.

  Squat.

  Zero.

  Zip.

  Not a chip, a chitter, a buzz, a hum.

  The cold shoulder; the silent treatment.

  “Fine! Guess that teaches me that I can’t depend upon you.” I hung out, waiting for the church secretary to come to work, alternately leaning against the building and pacing up and down the sidewalk.

  I was worried about slipping through the door and into the empty office area right on the woman’s heels. Guess I was nervous that I might make too much noise and freak her out. I also figured the door would lock behind her, so I looked for and found a discarded paper cup in the gutter.

  She arrived, unlocked the door, and swept into the hallway on the other side. I heard a little “ding-dong” when the door opened, and I made a mental note of it. As soon as she let go of the door, I shoved a flattened piece of the cup between the locking mechanism and the edge of the door.

  The secretary disappeared down the hall, and I reached for the door handle.

  Whoops: The “ding-dong.” Almost made a mistake.

  Great. Now I have to make nice with the nanomites.

  “Um, Nano. Check out the alarm system. I don’t want this door to chime when I open it.”

  Nothing.

  “Nano, please deactivate the door chime.”

  Crickets.

  Grrr!

  New tack.

  “Nano, let me put it to you this way: I’m not going home and I’m not setting up the laptop until I’m done with this errand. If you don’t help me, it will take longer to finish. I might have to wait hours for another person to come in or go out of this door.”

  After a full minute of no response, the mites swarmed out my hand and into the call box mounted to the side of the door—to the accompaniment of a low hiss.

  A low hiss? For all that, it could have been a razzing Bronx cheer.

  Whatever.

  A moment later, the mites returned to me, and I pulled open the door and crept inside.

  It had been years since I’d been inside DCC, so my fuzzy recollections were from a kid’s perspective. You know how it feels going somewhere you’d known as a child? How the rooms are smaller and less imposing than you remember, but your sense of colors is spot on?

  Yeah. That.

  I wandered through the halls, into the sanctuary, down the aisles, just looking around, reacquainting myself with the lay of the land. After I checked out the location of the exits, I made my way back to the office wing. The secretary was busy making coffee, humming a little to herself.

  I tiptoed past her open door, down the hall, and scanned the nameplates on the doors. Third door down, I found Zander’s office. The nameplate read, Zander A. Cruz, Associate Pastor.

  I shuddered a little. Ugh. I’d never get used to him being a pastor.

  I tried the knob. As expected, it was locked—and I figured the mites would give me a hard time if I asked them to open it. About then Secretary Lady hustled toward me so I flattened myself against the hall wall as she passed by. She disappeared into a room at the end of the hallway.

  Bathroom break?

  A break for me, in any event.

  I sprinted into her office and checked the walls for keys. Sure enough, I spotted a wall-mounted box for keys beh
ind her desk. I tugged on the box’s door—it was unlocked! I flipped the door open and ran my finger down the row of keys and their labels. I grabbed two keys, one under the label, “Office Entrance,” the other under “Pastor Cruz.”

  I was out of the church before Secretary Lady returned.

  ***

  Trust in the nanomites felt more and more misplaced. They were fickle. Unreliable. Stubborn. Willful. I trod down the street, trying to come up with the nearest place to duplicate keys—since keys didn’t pitch fits of noncooperation.

  Eventually I hopped a bus down Central and got off near one of those big-name hardware stores. Inside, I wandered up and down different aisles, looking for the key-duplicating machine. It was in the paint area.

  A tall, gangly guy sporting a blue vest perched on a stool behind the counter. He had his elbows planted on the countertop and his face planted in his phone.

  Well, he had no customers—if you didn’t count me—but he was sitting directly in front of the key-making machine.

  In. My. Way.

  I glared at him, but he didn’t budge. Guess he wasn’t feeling me much.

  Yet.

  Distraction?

  I moved over an aisle and spied the spray paint. Shelves and shelves of spray paint. Hundreds and hundreds of cans of spray paint. All types. Every color.

  I swept my arm down the length of one shelf and sent cans flying. I repeated the same thing three times, clearing entire shelves.

  I grinned to myself. This ought to get your attention.

  It did. The clerk stood at the foot of the aisle, mouth agape, staring at half the spray paint inventory rolling around on the floor. I kicked a few cans to keep them moving before I did an end run around the end cap and down the opposite aisle toward the key machine.

  I chose key blanks to match the two keys I’d pulled from my pocket. I studied the machine. Shouldn’t be too hard to run, right? So, why the two laminated pages of instructions posted next to the machine?

  “Sheesh. I don’t have time to read all this junk!”

  I blinked. Sighed. “Well, what if . . .”

  I placed one of the DCC keys on the counter and a blank next to it.

  “Nano. Make a duplicate key for me.”

  The nanomites had been mostly uncooperative since our disagreement but, at my command, the familiar silence ensued, followed by chittering. Chittering, but no action.

  I slapped the second DCC key on the counter and a blank next to it. Might as well do both at the same time, right? Time—as in I don’t have all day.

  “Nano! Make duplicates of both keys. Right now! Get with it!”

  The level of chittering rose and, after a frustrating wait of maybe twenty seconds, that warm, creeping sensation trickled down my right arm and out my hand. A blue glow surrounded the first key and its blank. Tiny sparks, a faint grinding, and the smell of hot metal rose from the glow.

  On the next aisle over, I heard the sounds of cans being thunked onto shelves accompanied by muffled swearing and the arrival of another individual.

  “What’s going on here, Josh?”

  “I don’t know, man. All these cans just fell off the shelves.”

  “They couldn’t just ‘fall off’ the shelves, Josh.”

  “I’m tellin’ you, man, I was at the paint counter and heard the crashes. Came over here and all these cans were rolling around on the floor!”

  I scowled. “Nano. Hurry up.”

  The blue glow crawled off the first set of keys and onto the second. I picked up the new key and compared it to the original. The new key was warm to the touch.

  “Looks like a match to me,” I muttered.

  The “thunking” down the spray paint aisle stopped, but I heard rattling, like maybe Josh was straightening the rows of cans. Like maybe he was almost done.

  “Nano! Come on!” I hissed.

  Half a minute later, the blue glow crept onto my hand and up my arm. I swept up the second set of keys and headed for the front of the store. I was already on the bus, nearing DCC, when I remembered I hadn’t paid for the key blanks.

  How do I describe the dispute that ensued?

  Fussy Shoulder Angel (sounding a lot like Aunt Lucy) exhorted me to go straight back and leave ten bucks for the blanks. The very suave and debonair Shoulder Demon interrupted with convincing arguments of his own.

  Naw, girl! No worries! It’s all good. You won’t make it long-term if you insist on that goody-two-shoes attitude, you know. Besides, you’re invisible—just take what you need. Don’t leave a trail of unexplained purchases for Cushing to sniff out.

  I mean, really. Who’s gonna know, anyway?

  Maybe the Voice of Reason had a point. Maybe I needed to stop with the ethics. After all, Cushing wasn’t playing by the rules, was she?

  The bus pulled into the cutout at my stop, so I tabled the internal discussion, telling Shoulder Angel that I had to return the original keys to the lockbox before Secretary Lady noticed they were gone. In that case, I didn’t have time to run back to the hardware store.

  Just as I inserted my new “Office Entrance” key into the lock to let myself into the DCC offices, I remembered the call box mounted to the wall beside the door.

  Whoops again. Almost made the same mistake.

  “Nano. Don’t let the door chime. I promise we’ll go home as soon as I’m done here.”

  That was as close to begging the tiny tyrants as I was willing to go.

  I inserted my key, turned it, and opened the door. Secretary Lady was at her desk, so I tiptoed past her door and down to Zander’s office. The new key for his door worked every bit as well as the entrance door had.

  “Good work, Nano.” I mouthed the grudging words more than spoke them aloud. They clicked once in response.

  I closed Zander’s door behind me and made sure it was locked. My eyes roamed the room before I moved. It was a tiny office, as far as offices go—but had Cushing already been here? Did she have some sense of my relationship with Zander?

  Did she have a sense of my relationship with Zander? I didn’t even have a ‘sense of my relationship’ with Zander.

  “Nano,” I whispered aloud. “Uh, scan the room for electronic surveillance.” I thought for a second and added, “Assess for threats. Please.”

  Golly gee, Gemma. Yer talkin’ like a reel spy now.

  Flashing blue specks floated out into the air, meandered over the desk, lit upon the phone, the lamp, the blotter, moved and touched other objects, flitted here and there.

  I approached Zander’s tidy desk, and the shimmering specks returned to me. I took a deep breath as though part of me had returned and needed the air.

  The desk had a pencil drawer in the middle and three larger drawers to the left. The larger drawers were locked.

  “Nano. Can you open these drawers?”

  Flickering blue lights. Done.

  I pulled open the top drawer and laid the brown paper package inside.

  “Lock the drawer, Nano.”

  Done.

  I locked Zander’s door behind me and wondered how I’d get Secretary Lady out of her office so I could return the keys I’d borrowed. Just then, someone arrived at the entrance at the end of the hall. He unlocked the door and walked through to the accompaniment of the chimes. He paused at Secretary Lady’s door.

  “Morning, Miss Coyne.”

  “Good morning, Pastor McFee. Coffee?”

  “Yes, please. And bring your notebook?”

  “Right away.”

  He opened one of the offices near Zander’s and went inside. A few minutes later, Miss Coyne followed him, toting a steaming mug.

  As soon as she entered and sat down in a chair in front of the pastor’s desk, I trotted to her office to return the borrowed keys—except the box was locked.

  “Um . . . Nano? Unlock this box, please?” The door to the key box snicked open. I placed the keys on their respective hooks and closed the door. The nanomites locked the key box without being
told to.

  “Well.” They were learning, as was I. And they seemed to have gotten over their snit.

  “Nice of you,” I grumbled.

  On the bus across town, I stared out the windows and wondered how long it would take for Zander to find the phone and call me. I didn’t know how long I’d have to wait, but I was anxious to hear from him.

  ***

  Back in the safe house, I kept my promise. I opened the laptop and plugged it in. I placed one hand on the keyboard. “Nano. Here’s the computer as promised. I will need Internet access while you are searching for Dr. Bickel.”

  With an uptick in clicking, clacking, and humming, they got busy. When I saw they had connected the laptop to a neighbor’s Wi-Fi network, I nodded and got busy, too.

  ***

  Just after noon, the phone with the blue label lit up. I lifted it and pressed the green button before the phone even rang—but I said nothing.

  “Hello?”

  Zander’s voice!

  “Oh, Zander! I’m so glad you called.”

  “Are you all right, Gemma?” I could hear the worry.

  “Yeah. I’m fine.”

  “Good. Abe will be glad to hear, too. You can’t imagine my surprise when I found the phone and your note. How in the world did you manage to—” He uttered something between a chuckle and a sigh. “Never mind. I’m just happy you did manage it. Are you feeling better? I mean from that ‘drain’ thing the nanomites did to you?”

  “Yeah, I’ve been resting and recuperating. I’m getting my strength back, but last night I, um, I had a bad dream about Emilio, and it really disturbed me. Is he okay?”

  “Yes, the kid’s fine. Abe waited three days before he called CYFD. He wanted to see if Mateo would even notice that Emilio was gone—more evidence that he’s unfit to take care of the kid. Anyway, Abe spoke to someone at CYFD, but because it isn’t an emergency, they haven’t sent anyone yet. They promised to send a social worker no later than tomorrow. In the meantime, Abe is feeding Emilio double rations, and I have been picking him up from school in the afternoon. We go hang out at the park for an hour before I take him back to Abe.”

  “And Mateo?”

  “Haven’t heard a peep from him. Fact is, Mateo is gone most nights and Abe says he comes home and sleeps during the day before going out again.”