Problem was—and this was a first for Vincent—somebody who seriously outweighed him had broken him.
Forget outweighing him—the thing that attacked him was of a different species entirely.
All of a sudden, the universe seemed way too friggin’ whimsical. The threats too great. The chances for failure too large.
It had taken him until Presidents’ Day to work up the courage to apply for another job. Security was all he’d known for fourteen years; it wasn’t as if he could go and open a flower shop in Manayunk. A pal recommended 1919 Market: all corporate tenants. Whiny, self-absorbed people, but no crazies, like you get in a hotel. Even swank ones like the Sheraton.
By Easter, Vincent Marella was on weekend-day and weekend-night detail.
So now here he was, on a miserably hot August day, checking every single window on the north side, all because a crackhead saw broken glass in the alley behind the building.
Up on thirty now.
Hit STOP. Go to the double security doors. Pop the mas—
Wait.
What was this on the door? Looked like a small dent, right near the handle. And a black friction mark. Vincent felt a cold tingle in his spine. He had a feeling he was going to find himself a broken window on this floor.
He couldn’t help himself. Before he unlocked the security door, Vincent put his ear to it. Listening for another ape.
David Murphy was thinking about popcorn.
This August marked the fifth anniversary of Murphy, Knox, and he wanted to let the whole building know it. To be perfectly honest, he didn’t care who in the building knew it. But a gift needed to be sent anyway. After consulting with the right tech guys—a team of chem-lab geeks he’d worked with back in Bosnia—he’d cooked up the perfect gift. A five-gallon tin of popcorn, divided into three sections: salt and butter, cheese, and caramel.
David was looking up at a row of those tins now. He had even more in his office, and at least a dozen stacked behind Molly’s desk.
He’d sampled some of the popcorn. The cheese was a bit too orange, and a bit too cloying—not to mention vaguely reminiscent of a foot. The caramel stuck to his teeth, and wasn’t so much sweet and caramelly as it was dark and syrupy. The salt-and-butter variety … now that was something he could get into.
Not that he did. He sampled only a few handfuls to convince himself that yes, this tasted like the kind of popcorn office denizens would get into, keep around the office for a while. They’d probably skip the cheese and caramel, though. But what was it Meat Loaf once sang? One out of three ain’t bad? Something like that.
David hired a company to insert the popcorn and trifold cardboard divider; he supplied the tins himself.
The exterior of the tin featured a wraparound skyline of Philadelphia, with the text in a hunter green oval on two sides:
MURPHY, KNOX & ASSOCIATES
PROUD TO CALL THE CITY OF BROTHERLY LOVE HOME …
… 5 YEARS RUNNING!
Molly had written that. She had been good at those things.
Before she shot him in the head.
Yesterday, dozens of popcorn tins were delivered to every single tenant of 1919 Market Street, from floors thirty through thirty-seven. This included three law firms, an accounting office, a local lifestyle magazine, the private office of a state supreme court justice, two philanthropic concerns, and a few other random businesses that didn’t mean much to David.
If any tenants in floors twenty-nine or lower were to have felt slighted, David was prepared to cheerfully reply: Ah, you see, the delivery service could only do so much in one day. The rest were to be delivered on Monday. Hope you don’t mind waiting!
There were no more popcorn tins to be delivered, though. He’d ordered only enough for the eight floors at the top with some left over for special clients.
Was this a loose end? Would a nameless researcher for a congressional investigatory commission check the order later?
Like it really mattered.
Even though David was paralyzed, lying in a pool of his own blood in the conference room, he imagined himself smiling at the stack of popcorn tins on the small table against the wall. Six little popcorn tins. The one part of this morning that hadn’t completely gone to hell.
Whatever Molly had planned, David hoped for her sake she was going to finish it up quickly.
Maybe she’d come back and do the right thing. Finish him off.
Which would be perfect.
There was no ape on the thirtieth floor.
Nothing even remotely simian. And more important, no broken windows or missing panes of glass. Vincent enjoyed a few deep breaths of relief. The scuff on the security door had been nothing. Probably a late-night FedEx guy, banging his steel dolly into it.
Nothing to worry about.
He knew he was probably still freaked out by his little adventure at the Sheraton. Being choked into unconsciousness could do that to a guy. But he also knew it was partly his boy messing with his mind. His fifteen-year-old conspiracy theorist.
For weeks now, the boy had convinced himself that the 9/11 attacks on the World Trade Center were actually the work of the U.S. government—an elaborate stage show that cost thousands of lives, but won those in power a blank check to protect their business interests in the name of “the war on terror.” He told his boy to get the hell out of here, but the boy, as usual, had a way of chipping away at his old man, one piece of evidence at a time. He’d be sitting there at Vincent’s home PC, watching something intently, and of course, he would have to check it out, because what if it was porn? It was his paternal obligation. He would walk over to the monitor, though, and the boy would be pointing excitedly at the screen. “Watch this, Dad,” and before Vincent knew it, he was watching one of the two towers fall. He didn’t know which one—north or south.
The boy pointed at the side of the falling building. “Did you see that?”
“No—what? And hey, what are you watching this stuff for?”
“Look closer.” The boy rewound the video a few seconds, then clicked the little triangle. “See that?”
“See what.”
“The puff of smoke, shooting out of the sides as the building pancakes down.”
“I guess.”
“That’s a sign of a controlled demolition, Dad. The government brought those buildings down on purpose. They knew a plane hitting the top couldn’t do the job, so they put in a little insurance.”
“Get the hell out of here.”
Vincent heard himself speak those words, and realized that they were coming straight from his own father. Only his father would not be finding his boy Vincent poring over a conspiracy video on the Internet. He’d find him in the back shed with a copy of Swank, and his ironworker dad would curl it up, beat Vincent with it, and then say “Get the hell out of here,” before confiscating the magazine for personal use.
If only it were that easy.
So he had been hearing a lot of this crazy stuff recently—every weekend, when his boy came to stay. He got interested despite himself. Poked around a few articles the boy had printed out for him. It’s what made him grab that copy of Center Strike from the tiny book collection in the security lounge.
It also made him think way too much about the building he was paid to protect.
There were taller, more important buildings in Philadelphia than 1919 Market, that was for sure. Any terrorists thinking about attacking a building would most likely shoot for Liberty One and Two, Philly’s gleaming blue answer to the World Trade Center. Or City Hall, which at one time actually was the tallest building in America … for about seventeen minutes. Or the obvious symbols of American freedom: Independence Hall and, right across the street in a shiny new pavilion, the Liberty Bell.
In comparison, 1919 Market was neither architecturally nor historically significant. No government offices, unless you count that state supreme court justice’s pad.
So why had he been so freaked out?
Vincent de
cided he had to tell the boy to lay off the 9/11 stuff for a while.
What Vincent Marella didn’t know was that there were four explosive devices tucked away above the acoustic panels on the thirtieth floor. Two on the south side, one on the west, another on the north. One of the south-side devices was hanging ten feet from where he stood.
The scuff on the security door, though, was not the result of a last-minute break-in.
That really had been a FedEx guy.
In actuality, the explosive devices had been planted five years ago, shortly after David Murphy signed a ten-year lease on his portion of the thirty-sixth floor. David kept the trigger close at hand, at all times.
David liked to be prepared for all eventualities.
Even if the office were to be breached someday by a well-meaning law enforcement agency, they would find no such explosives on the thirty-sixth floor. Above, or below it.
No one would think to check six floors below.
Not until it was too late.
And when it came time to close up shop—like today—it was simply a matter of providing the right kind of accelerant. And spreading it on floors thirty-one through thirty-seven.
The kind of accelerant that could be melted into popcorn tins, and distributed to the companies on those floors.
MURPHY, KNOX & ASSOCIATES PROUD TO CALL THE CITY OF BROTHERLY LOVE HOME … … 5 YEARS RUNNING!
The model David had in mind was One Meridian Plaza. He’d read about it before basing his company in Philadelphia. On February 23, 1991, a fire broke out on the twenty-second floor, engulfing and eventually gutting the eight floors above it. The building did not collapse, but remained a hulking shell of itself for more than a decade before city officials finally authorized its destruction.
A simple fire. Eight floors of destruction.
With the right kind of accelerant, it was more than enough to destroy the existence of Murphy, Knox.
Except in the minds of the fine people who enjoyed its free popcorn from time to time over the years.
Vincent Marella had no way of knowing any of this. This did not make him a bad security guard. In fact, the only piece of physical evidence that David had left behind, five years ago, was a tiny black tube of wire sheathing, cut from the wire when he patched the devices into the building’s power lines. David had missed it when he did a quick sweep of the rug to make sure he had left no traces.
Two days later, a vacuum cleaner from housekeeping had scooped it up.
It was now at the bottom of a floating landfill somewhere near South America.
Piece that together.
Vincent’s two-way beeped, snapping him out of his daydreams. If there were any terrorists hiding up here, that would have completely given away the game. Gotten his ass killed.
“What’s up?”
“You’d better come down to sixteen, Vincent.” It was Rickards, who’d been checking the lower half of the building.
“What’s going on?”
“Got a guy down here you should see.”
“Let me guess. He has cuts all over his hands from pushing through a window.”
“No,” Rickards said. “He’s unconscious and he’s got a pen sticking out of his throat.”
Nichole wasn’t sure what was worse: the fact that Molly had dropped her on her ass with one punch. Or that a drone like Jamie DeBroux had to revive her.
People in the world were divided into a few simple categories. The large majority were drones, buzzing about their daily lives, completely unaware how their contributions fit into the larger hive. They could be frightened into collective action quite easily—a terrorist threat or environmental disaster or flu epidemic. Some of these were even real. But most were engineered by the queens, or put into action by the workers.
Nichole and Molly were the workers.
People like David Murphy were the queens.
Nichole liked to believe that she was on an equal playing field with other workers. Sure, there were workers more powerful or gifted in some ways, but they were all still workers.
Molly, however, had been an extraordinarily tough worker.
Nichole was stunned by her ability to take a severe beating and still remain standing. She almost felt bad that she had to cheat at the end. But it was the only scenario available to her. Nichole knew she was mortally injured. And she knew Molly must be stopped.
“Where is she?” Nichole asked now. She sat up and felt incredibly dizzy.
“Who? Molly? She’s gone.”
“What?”
Nichole tried to get to her feet faster than she should have. The floor spun. But she had to look, see for herself.
The office where Molly had fallen was empty. Shattered glass was all over the floor, along with chunks of drywall and dust. Nichole counted bullet holes. Two in the window. One in the metal radiator. Another two in the desk. And one on the right wall, a wild shot (probably her last, Nichole thought) that probably sailed three feet over Molly’s head. Six shots fired. Six shots accounted for.
None of them had struck the Russian farm girl.
Nichole cursed and pounded her fist into the nearest available wall. Which happened to be the outer wall of the empty office.
A jagged shard of glass that had been hanging for its life at the top of the frame now fell, bursting against the frame below, and sending pieces over Jamie’s legs.
“Hey,” he said.
Nichole looked down and saw that she was missing a shoe. She carefully stepped over to it, shook out the glass, and replaced it on her foot. Then she recovered the HK P7 from the floor and tucked it in the back of her pants again.
“Come on,” she said.
“Where?”
“Off this floor.”
Nichole was lying, though. She needed to go to David’s office to recover any intel she could. Only then could she think about escape. If it came to it, she could pry open the elevator doors and make their escape down the shaft. Unless David had rigged those, too.
“Can you give me a hand?”
Nichole sighed. Drones. She held out her hand, then felt a panel of her shirt open wide, giving Jamie a clear view of her bra. Her bloodied bra. She withdrew her hand. Jamie had reached out by then, and when Nichole withdrew, his hand grabbed air. He slammed back against the cubicle wall.
“Ouch,” he said.
Nichole didn’t pay him any mind. She was looking down at her ruined shirt.
“What did you do?” she asked.
“I had to rip open your shirt to give you CPR.”
“You couldn’t do it over my shirt? What, were you hoping for a cheap feel?”
“I wasn’t thinking about that,” Jamie said. “I was trying to save your life.”
Nichole looked up the hall. “I guess I should be grateful my bra is still on.”
“Hey, it wasn’t like that.”
“Sure. I remember it from my CPR classes. Step one: If the victim is female, rip open her shirt.”
Nichole looked to see if there was a single button left standing. There wasn’t.
“Come on,” she said, “let’s go.”
Jamie slowly pulled himself to his feet.
“Where’s everybody else? Do you think Molly’s going after them, too?”
Nichole considered this carefully. How much to tell him? After all, Roxanne’s dead body was just a few feet away, around the other end of the cubicles. She would have to lead him around to David’s office the long way—and hope they didn’t encounter Molly.
At least she had two rounds left in the HK P7. If she was given another opportunity, she’d do it point-blank style.
Press the barrel right up against Molly’s forehead and squeeze.
Nichole looked at Jamie—disheveled, bloodied, battered, but still a drone.
Silence, for now, was the best policy.
“Follow me,” she said.
They found the three essentials in David’s office: bandages, booze, and a battery. AA, even. Just what the Talk
about T900 needed.
Unfortunately, the T900 had been crushed.
On their way back, Jamie had scooped it up from the floor of the office where Molly had tried to filet him. The plastic screen was gone. Now the unit refused to turn on, even with the new battery, which Nichole had found in one of David’s desk drawers.
“Let me see it,” Nichole said.
Jamie didn’t argue. He handed it over and sat down on the floor with the first aid kit Nichole had found in David’s desk. Standard company issue, purchased at OfficeMax. Six hundred sixteen pieces, with the ability to serve up to a hundred people. Handy for mornings like these, when your boss and coworker go bananas and try to shoot, slice, and poison you.
Meanwhile, Nichole was replacing the battery door on the back of the T900. She had opened it up and reinserted the batteries, just in case. She pushed a few buttons. Nothing happened.
“This thing is shot,” Nichole said.
“Told you.”
“Did you land on it, or something? Damn it.”
Okay. Jamie couldn’t put it off any longer. He had to do what he could to patch up his hand. At least something to make the bleeding stop until they made it off this floor. If he had his way, he’d wrap the fingers in gauze and slip a black leather glove over the whole thing, like Luke Skywalker wore in Jedi. Even better: Convince the Rebels to replace his hand with a cybernetic part. Start over.
Jamie looked at his fingers.
Oh, God.
He couldn’t look at them.
They throbbed hard, as if to remind him: We’re here. We’re damaged. We’re here. We hurt. Fix us. Fix us now.
Jamie pulled some gauze from the kit and tried to wrap them blind, using as much tape as possible. If Andrea were here, she’d yell at him for not using disinfectant. Of course he could argue that it wasn’t worth worrying about infection. When Jamie looked down, he could have sworn he saw bone.
“What are you doing?”
“Wrapping up my fingers.”
“You’re not doing a very good job.”
“I’m new at this.”
“Give me your hand. We don’t have much time.”
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