by Penny Cavan
“Has the manager done nothing to stop him?” I asked, leaning back in my chair. I spun to face the windows behind me, watching the people as Nigel continued his report. A girl caught my eye. Her clothes were styled similarly to those worn by the inhabitants of this district, but they were a coarser fabric than they should be. Her family might have been new to the area, where fine fabrics were common. I knew that the poorer districts lived in what my tutors had called a medieval way. One part of my mind focused on Nigel while the other imagined the clothes that I would dress her in. She would wear only the finest silks. A deep red would make her skin glow. Her golden hair would fall like a waterfall against a shimmering green. I would adorn her with the most beautiful jewels I could find. She knelt to examine the gold that had been inlaid by my father around the base of the building and I imagined her kneeling beside me in front of a fire at the end of a long day, resting her head upon my shoulder. The sun moved from behind a cloud, and a golden glow surrounded her. She looked up in delight and it seemed that she was smiling directly at me. Then she stood and moved on, my imaginings going with her.
“Sir?” I realized that Nigel had stopped speaking. I turned to face him once more.
“Make the arrangements,” I said. Nigel nodded and hit a few spots on his tablet. The screen in front of my dinged as I saw an itinerary populate. This was why I kept Nigel around.
“Planned for the day after tomorrow, Sir. And I haven’t announced our arrival.” Nigel tapped for a few more seconds then looked up at me. “Is there anything else you need from me today, Sir?”
“Go home, Nigel,” I said with a sigh, turning back to the windows.
Chapter Three
Harlow
This was not going to be easy. Midas’ vault was behind three feet of stone, unknown protection spells, three sets of two-inch-thick steel bars and a vault door that was likely also several inches of pure metal thick. And that didn’t take into account the guards that were walking around. I’d cased the building the past two days at different points, and twice I’d sat in the shadows of the neighboring buildings to watch several hours of comings and goings at night. The vault seemed impenetrable, except….
Late in the afternoon of the second day I’d been watching the building I had seen a slight man coming out of a door that had blended seamlessly into the side of the wall. If I could find that door and figure out how it opened, I might be able to slide in behind some of the obstacles. The man was important, by the cut of his clothes and the leather briefcase he carried. It looked like something that belonged in one of the few museums that still existed. He’d walked off rather than getting into one of the cars, but how many people in suits knew about a secret door in one of the most powerful corporations in the world?
I waited in the dark, my cloak wrapped around me. I had to time this carefully, and strike when people would be at their least alert. Once, that had been between two and three in the morning, but guards were now trained to become more alert during that time. That time would still be when the men on the street would be the least aware and the time to find that door.
“Coins,” an old woman changed as she walked down the street in front of me, holding out a small bag. “Coins.” She couldn’t see me from my hiding spot, but I shrank into the shadows anyway. Getting away with this theft meant that I could not be caught. I didn’t try and delude myself that I was here with some altruistic goal. This was theft. She shuffled past me, not even looking down the alley I was in. After she passed, I walked silently across the street, tightening the hood around my head so that the sudden breeze wouldn’t pull it down. The guards at the front door followed the woman. Their loss.
I paced down the side of the building, letting my hand run along the stone, until I reached the point where the door had opened. I frowned at the wall under my hand. It felt like glass, but it looked like stone.
That didn’t stop me from finding the door. It was absurdly easy. My hand, running along the wall almost fell into the indented handle. Finding it wasn’t the problem though. I tugged and the door didn’t move. I had to find the locking mechanism. That was going to be fun when I couldn’t even see the door. Without moving my hand from the door, I turned to study the wall. The area looked just like the walls around it, a great, foreboding, grey stone. Eight feet in the air there was a pattern of interlocking lines that wrapped in square spirals. I started at it for a moment, my head cocked to the side. I’d seen that pattern before, and I racked my brain to remember where. I brought my right hand to the stone and tapped against the side of the building. I dropped my head to sit against my fingertips, which had me looking down at the ground.
The ground where there was a matching golden pattern inlaid in the stone that formed the walkway. It didn’t match exactly, I noticed, and grinned widely. This was the easiest kind of magical lock I could ever have faced. The spirals were paired up and twisted in opposite directions. Most of them were bordered in gold with the white stone forming the pattern within that. There was one pair, though, almost directly in front of my hand that was tucked into the handle of the door where the pattern was gold and the border was white. I moved so that both of my feet were standing on the inverse section of the pattern and felt the lock opening under my hand. The door pushed in easily and I slipped inside the great center of the Midas Corporation.
This building was the tallest building in the area, towering over the ones near it. It was straight up, floor upon floor, with only the top floors becoming smaller to create a point at the top. This secret door opened into a back passage. To my left was a door that led into an office. To my right, a set of stairs leading up. Logic told me that the vault would be under me, unless the windows in the upper floors were just as much illusion as the stone guarding the door I’d come in. I set down my bag of tools and crept silently down the passage. After twenty feet, I saw another door on the right that was partially open. I looked through the opening and found an office. Not of interest. I crept another fifteen feet forward and the passage opened onto another hall. At either end of the hall was a semi-circular desk with a guard. The one to my left was staring at another section of the building, what I assumed to be the atrium, watching the large glass windows for anyone attempting to break in that way. The man to my right was turning pages in a book, glancing up every few minutes. Neither of them turned to look at the other and I slipped silently the way I had come.
I opened the door to the stairs and slipped in, freezing when there was a slight click when the door shut. I waited but heard nothing. I went over the walls and floors carefully, making sure that there wasn’t another secret door here. Content that if I had missed something it was far above my head, I slipped from the stairwell and to the office across from it, grabbing my bag from where it sat.
When I entered, lights automatically began to glow. I cursed silently, worrying that they would be a beacon for the guards if they decided to patrol. As if the lights understood my worries, the ones nearest the door went out, and the ones deeper into the room lowered until there was almost no light. That was a bit disturbing. I shook my head, trying not to think too hard about it.
The room was opulent but had little personality. There was a massive desk to one side, the top bare of anything but a small crystal light. The bones of the chair behind it looked like gold, but the cloth creating the seat and back were plain black. It faced a blank wall. The other side of the room contained a small sitting area and table, and a few cases with books and trinkets. I wandered closer to the case and noticed that each of those trinkets was made of gold. They were all incredibly lifelike animals, from a bird singing to a lizard sunning itself on a rock. One of the larger ones was a kitten, curled up in sleep. The artist had even managed to immortalize the whiskers, as thin as a hair. Like the lamps, something about these sculptures made me uncomfortable and I turned away from them.
I slipped across the room and sat in the chair behind the desk. It surprised me slightly when it moved under me and I realized tha
t it could spin in place. I turned and laughed when I was facing the wall. They were windows, darkened now, but the lamp on the desk reflected slightly off the glass. I turned back to the desk. Examining it closer, I realized that desk might be overstating it. There was a single drawer under the tabletop, and it contained two pencils, a notepad, and what looked like a golden earing with three teardrop emeralds hanging from it. I touched it gently, amazed by the delicate work. It was a filigree pattern, and it looked as if it had been spun from golden thread.
I closed the drawer and looked at the wall in front of me. Who would choose to stare at something so bland all day? I sighed heavily, wishing that it could be brighter without alerting the guards to my presence. That wall was cut back from the open windows in the door, so the light would have been hidden from view. Again, as if the lights knew what I wanted, the two scones on the blank wall brightened. My discomfort disappeared when I noticed a slight sheen to the wall. I moved to my right, then my left and watched the light shimmer in what appeared to be the shape of a door. I grinned. Now to figure out how to open this door.
There was no hidden handle in this door, like the one from outside, and not easily seen pattern key. I ran my hands over every inch of the wall and the floor in front of it and still found nothing. I sat back on my knees and stared at the wall. This was a door; I was sure of it. It had the perfect dimensions. I just could not figure out how to open it. I settled in, staring at the wall. The sheen was still there, and it glinted, practically teasing me. I breathed deeply and let my mind relax. Ivy had taught me to meditate when I was young to keep me from crying while hiding from our hunters. I found now that it helped me to find patterns and solve problems. I almost felt disassociated from the world around me while I focused on the issue.
I’m not sure how long I sat staring at that wall before it hit me. I reached for my bag and drew out a wax tablet and a stylus and grinned. There was a slight pattern to the sheen. That had to be the key. When I had it drawn on the tablet, I could see the geometric patterns circled outward from two points. They almost looked like suns. The circular origin points where the only place where I couldn’t see the sheen. I tucked the tablet away, shouldered my bag and stood with a heavy breath. Time to see if I was right.
I held my breath as I placed one of my hands in each of the empty circles. It seemed as if nothing happened at first, but then my ears caught a slight mechanical whirl. Just to my left, a section of the floor slid back to reveal a staircase spiraling down. Crystal lamps lit every few steps. Now it was time to see if I could find the answers that I was looking for.
The door closed over my head when I was just a few steps down. My heart raced until I realized that I could still feel the freshness of the air. This passage was getting a vent of fresh air from somewhere. I continued down the stairs and smiled when I came to a great golden door.
Chapter Four
Midas
Something had me on edge, I just wasn’t sure what it was. It felt as if there was something that I was forgetting, or should be remembering, I just couldn’t figure out what it was. Nigel looked at me curiously as I flinched slightly.
“Are you well, Sir?” he asked lightly, not looking at me.
“Fine, Nigel,” I replied, pulling up the detailed reports we had taken over the last two days. We sat across from each other on the small transport plane that would take us home. Our journey to Alcaten had been fruitful for me. The manager and overseer who had been mistreating the employees were no longer employed, and I had set investigators on them. If they had no issues with abusing people under them at their job, then they likely would have no issues with doing the same thing at home. A lesson needed to be learned that the strong protected the weak, not injured them. Shortening the trip had been my ability to hire from within the factory itself. An overseer promoted to manager, and the women who had worked on the fine silks floor had suggested one if their own to be a worker-overseer. It was an unusual situation, but the woman had the support of those she worked with, so I was allowing it on a temporary basis.
“As you see, there is a clear record of when this abuse began in the productivity reports of the floor,” Nigel said, watching me closely. “The women have always been more productive than their counterparts, but it dropped off here,” he pointed to a slight dip in their production before it stabilized again, but at a lower rate. “I cross checked the employment records, and that is when Fleish was transferred in as overseer.”
“I want to keep a close eye on that floor for the next three months and see how their productivity is affected. Also, check the productivity of all departments across the corporation and see if there are any similar weeds that need to be rooted out. Call upon those you need to help you.” I pushed the report away. It was true that Midas Corporation was a conglomerate of several smaller business in industries all over the country, but I took pride in having the best cared for workers. Nigel nodded and took a few notes. I twitched again. I’d felt this feeling before, I just couldn’t place it. I saw Nigel eye me warily. “It’s nothing, Nigel. Rest for the rest of the trip. Tomorrow is another day.” I turned to the window, seemingly looking out, but instead taking a deep breath and retreating in.
I managed not to twitch when I felt the next tickle against my power. It wasn’t someone probing me, that I was certain of. No one was stupid enough to try when I funded large sections of the government. With each breath, I allowed my mind to settle enough to connect with each of the vaults I had hidden in various properties. The gold in each of them seemed to glow as I check on it. My father had described gold as cold, but it called to me. It knew exactly what it was worth. I moved to the smallest of my vaults last, the one hidden in my own office. The gold there was livelier, probably because I spent so much time close to it. It was ecstatic to feel me, and I smiled, picturing the many pieces in the vault. This vault held some of the oldest and most precious pieces in the collection, and some of the most dangerous secrets that I had frozen forever in gold. I chuckled as one of the small chests “fell” in my mind and spilled across the floor. The vault had vents, out of necessity, to keep the stale air from turning poisonous. Many months ago, a cat had discovered how to get into the vault and birthed her kittens there. I’d only just managed to give the last kitten away.
“Nigel, look into meshes strong enough to withstand a determined feline and have samples on my desk in two days, please,” I murmured, opening my eyes.
“The cat has found her way back into the vault?” he asked with amusement, making a note on his tablet. I grunted in acknowledgment and settled back in my seat.
I worked through business the next day until late in the afternoon before I turned to the vault. The cat could get in and out, so I didn’t really need to do anything, but I did want to right the small chest she’d knocked over. Unimportant, in the grand scheme of things, but it would also be soothing to be there. I frowned slightly at the vault door. The handle in the middle, used to pull the bars in, seemed slightly off centered from where I left it. I spun the handle and pushed the door in, smiling at the warm glow of the gold. I lit the torches in here with a lighter, enjoying how the flame played against the brightness.
I picked up the chest, replacing the jewelry in it. These had belonged to a princess, according to the family lore. It was all ancient but beautifully wrought. Most of it was simply gold, but some contained gemstones in a rainbow of colors. My father had given my mother a pair of earrings from this collection once. I placed the chest back on its shelf, turning to survey for any other damage wrought by the cat. A few of the piles of coins were wider than they had been, but nothing was damaged.
A slight jingle caught my ear and I turned to see the cat, a black girl who seemed to take up twice the space she should due to her fur, slip out of the side of a box. I stared at the box as she wound herself around my ankles, meowing. This was not good.
“Nigel!” I called as the floor slid shut behind me. I set the cat down and she walked over to my desk wh
ere she curled up in a sunbeam on the top. I set the box on the table, not taking my eyes from it. It had once been a solid cube made of thick, heavy plastic with no hinges or lid. I’d frozen the lid into place when I’d turned it to gold, making it impossible to open. Now there was a carefully clipped hole in the corner and the box was empty.
“Yes, Sir?” Nigel asked, coming into my office. He looked up and stopped in his tracks. “Is that…?”
“From the vault?” I asked acidly. “Yes. Someone figured out how to break in.”
“The vault is impenetrable.”
“It appears not,” I said, turning to face him. “I want the guards from the last three days in this office in the next twenty minutes. I want the video surveillance from all entrances and hallways on my tablet.”
Nigel nodded and spun to the door. He paused and turned back to me. “Sir, is that the box that I think it is?”
“The box that contained all notes and samples on the Medusa Serum,” I replied, and he paled. If I noticed that he moved faster after that announcement, I didn’t say anything. There was a reason that this experiment had been sealed into a box and locked into a vault that no one knew how to get into but me. I closed my eyes and reached into my power, spreading out over the city for any trace of my power. There was a chance that, when I’d turned the box to gold, something in the notes had been affected.
It turned out that I didn’t need to worry about a piece of the work attracting me. The thief had taken more than just the experiment. A thin chain called out to me, wrapped around the wrist of a woman. She ran her fingers over it, worrying as she rubbed the metal. I could sense that she was soothed by it, but that was no excuse. No one stole from me and got away with it. I wrapped a coil of wire around the chain, creating a leash between it and me. As long as that chain was on her person, I would be able to find the thief no matter where she hid.