We spent the remainder of our ascent in silence. Raines refused to share her secret. Prying wouldn't change that fact. Answers would come soon enough, I hoped.
The elevator slowed to a smooth, almost imperceptible stop. When the doors slid apart, revealing two armed guards with the general size and shape of brick walls shoved into suits and handed assault rifles, my heart did a stutter step. Startled, I fought my body's first instinct to attack while we maintained the fleeting element of surprise.
Raines didn't share that tactical perspective and opted for a different course of action.
"Hey, Damon," she said with a smile that looked genuine. "Is he in?"
Damon, the older of the two gentlemen barring our path, studied me as if I might be his next meal. A raised pink scar slithered up the man's cheek into a receding line of salt-and-pepper hair. Nanites could fix the cosmetic damage, but in his line of work looking the part of scary war machine probably went a long way.
It was going a long way on me.
My fingers itched to be wrapped around a weapon of any sort. I felt naked and woefully overmatched if things got physical. I made a mental note to ask Raines how she knew these two members of the President's Alpha Guard.
"Mr. Moreau is in a meeting, but I'll let him know you stopped by, Mrs. Raines." Damon didn't bother with pleasantries. His tone was all business.
Raines stepped forward and placed a hand on Damon's shoulder. The big man eyed her but didn't respond. In the short silence that followed the enormous soldier and the slender cop stared at each other in the soft way old friends do.
"I'll just wait in his office if that's okay," she said.
Damon's posture slackened. His lips rose to greet his ears, forming a crease across his cheek in the process. He wore the smile like a battle wound.
"Uh...yeah, alright. Of course, Alaina," he said, his voice having undergone a complete transformation. Without loosening his grip on the rifle in his hands, he pivoted and led the way down a narrow corridor lined with unmarked doors. "Should I ping Mr. Moreau and let him know you're here?"
"That won't be necessary," Raines said, falling into step beside the moving mountain. "We'll wait until whenever he's done. I don't want to be a distraction."
Damon nodded with a grunt.
I lacked the life experience to understand it, but something incredibly odd had just occurred between Damon and Raines. Somehow Raines had neutralized the veteran soldier with a soft touch and placating voice.
Our procession stopped beside a solid metal door that looked identical to all the others we'd passed. The uniformity of the floor plan gave no indication as to Bradley Moreau's place within the company hierarchy. Judging purely by the fact that the hall continued an additional hundred feet past three more doors, I guessed Moreau to be a middle manager of sorts.
A biometric scanner on the door responded to Damon's palm and it dilated open to reveal a lavishly appointed office.
Thoughts of Moreau as a middle manager were pushed to the side. A single paned window stretched floor to ceiling on the south-facing wall. The Time Bank towered above its neighbors, offering an unrivaled view of sky and city sprawl. On the horizon, over a sea of buildings, I barely made out the pillared sides of the Vault.
It was the type of view reserved for people accustomed to calling the shots.
"If you need anything, let me know," Damon said, his wide shoulders managing to touch both sides of the doorframe.
"Thanks." Raines crossed the room and stopped beside a white leather couch. "Do you have any idea when Brad might be back?"
"Hard to say. President's been meeting with bigwigs from the other Districts all morning. Moreau's running things from the Oracle. You know how it is babysitting those delegate types, but I'm sure he'll find a few minutes for you."
Raines stared off at the ceiling, squinting slightly and chewing the corner of her lip as if doing complex mental math.
"Hey, next time you pop in, bring those two hellions with you," Damon said, stepping back into the hall. "We don't see nearly enough of Maddie and Morgan around these parts anymore."
"I'm not sure the President finds the idea of kids mingling with Alpha Guard as endearing as you or me."
"What he doesn't know won't hurt him." Damon gave an enormous wink before exiting.
Raines was standing behind a glass-framed desk in the corner by the time the door closed. The workstation was sparsely adorned with few indicators that anybody used it for anything more than decoration.
Raines' fingers flitted across a touchpad on the desk. The wall behind her melted to reveal a hidden door.
"You gonna tell me what the hell is going on?" I asked. "Who's Bradley Moreau?"
"He's the Captain of Alpha Guard."
"And how did you get clearance to be here and go through his stuff?"
"I married him."
That hit me hard, a right cross square on the chin. "Oh."
Raines looked up from Moreau's desk. "Did you think I'd wait for you to get your shit together and come back?"
"No."
Maybe.
I didn't know what I wanted anymore. Life goes on. A truth I'd wanted for Raines, but I suppose I didn't want to face the reality of what that actually meant. Easier to hide away in the Lowers. Die oblivious. Our ignorance protects us.
"I'm glad you found someone," I said. "You deserve to be happy."
"He's a good man." Raines refused to meet my gaze, which was fine 'cause I wasn't sure I'd be strong enough to hold hers. “He won't condone what we're doing. We can get to the President, but we've got to be quick."
"How?"
"Brad has a personal elevator connected to the President's antechamber. We can use it to get to the top floor."
"What about you?"
"What about me?"
"Can you do this? Use your husband, I mean?"
Raines stared through a hologram projected on the corner of Moreau's desk. She was in it, wearing a white sundress, with a boy and girl wrapped in either arm.
The kids had Raines' hair, black like the ocean floor. They were twins, but Madison had her mother's eyes, Morgan his father's, which were filled with a sort of longing. A searching for something the world had yet to offer.
"I don't have a choice." Raines abruptly canceled the projection. "You're not the only one Malcolm is playing games with."
***
Moreau's service elevator was a tight fit for one, downright intimate for two. Raines stood nearest the door, the back of her skull pressed firmly against my nose. Fields of rain-soaked lavender wafted up my nostrils, making my brain tingle.
I closed my eyes, forcing any memories or feelings that scent might conjure back down to the suppressed depths of my subconscious.
"Be ready," she said. "They won't be expecting us, but that won't buy us much."
"How many are up there?"
"Hard to say. Jennings will have his two shadows, for sure. Beyond that is anybody's guess. Security is designed to keep potential threats off the top floor. By comparison to the rest of the building the President's office will be lightly protec—"
The elevator shuddered to a stop. A ding announced its arrival. The doors slid apart, revealing two Alpha Guards standing at attention.
Raines bolted forward, covering the fifteen feet to the guards in a blur before my nanocomp could even dump a fresh-brewed pot of adrenaline into my system. The man on the left shared my surprise at the small woman streaking towards him. The other guy, however, was ready. His pupils were flakes of obsidian lost in a field of snow.
Raines left her pistol on her hip, instead opting to get close, negating the advantage of the men's rifles. I was still inside the elevator considering tactical options when she leapt over an end table, vaulted a leather chair, and engaged the wired mongoose on the right with a flying ninja kick.
The adrenaline finished percolating and hit my muscles. My nanocomp trimmed back thoughts running in the background and sharpened my mind like a swor
d to a whetstone. The world fuzzed around the edges, leaving the remaining guard framed in clarity. I lunged, forgetting sore muscles as the nanobots surfing my veins worked overtime to compensate.
Raines and her opponent were locked in a tightly orchestrated dance of ass-kickery, but there wasn't time to appreciate the details. The guard I hurtled towards regained his composure and jumped to meet me in the middle.
In a contest of size and strength, he'd win outright. But life-and-death fights are rarely decided by those two factors.
Experience and craftiness, plus a strong desire not to die, go a long way.
Looking at the man's freshly shaved cheeks, chiseled from marble, I guessed I had him on the first two points, but the third remained undecided.
The guard directed a boulder-sized fist at my face. I saw it coming with plenty of time to duck. What I didn't see was his other fist following in the wake of the first. It hammered me in the solar plexus, driving the air from my lungs with a spasming cough.
Something cracked. I clipped my ankle on the side of a small oval-cut table and staggered, clutching at my damaged ribs while wheezing through constricted airways. I straightened my back to stretch the shrinking diaphragm that refused to take in more air.
The guard spun and closed the distance, fast. I dodged the first three strikes directed at my head more on luck than skill. I backed away from the fist tornado until the wall barred further retreat.
My nanocomp decided it'd had enough and took control of the situation. It locked onto a fist coming towards my face and shifted my perception of time. The ball of muscle and bone slowed until it moved at half-speed. There was plenty of time to act, or not to act, but those weren't decisions for me to make anymore.
As a passive observer I watched my body slide down the wall in the final moment before the guy's knuckles could relocate my face to the floor. The fist zipped by my head. It found nothing for its efforts but the unyielding smart-metal wall, which deformed slightly under its force.
He showed no sign of pain.
Muscle memory guided me forward from my knee. I popped up and kicked him in the kneecap, with the crunch of bone realigning and ligaments snapping.
The guard swayed and hobbled backwards, but didn't fall.
I feigned a punch followed by a second kick to the man's good leg.
The man strafed awkwardly to avoid the blow, putting him right where I wanted. His exposed chin floated past. I planted my foot, shifted directions, and swung a wide hook that found a home where the rolls of muscle in his neck gave way to jawbone.
His eyes rolled back and the lights went out. He arrived in dreamland a split second before hitting the ground.
I puffed my chest and smiled as I turned to check on Raines.
She stood over the body of her own dispatched opponent, arms crossed, with a hint of boredom playing on her face.
"You're getting old," she said.
"What? That guy's huge," I said, gesturing towards the Goliath at my feet. "I did good."
Raines rolled her eyes and turned down the hall.
"Cut me some slack," I said, dogging her steps. "I'm dying here."
***
"Ready?" I said, taking aim at the door with the energy pistol I'd pilfered from the guard at the elevator.
Raines nodded and tightened her grip on her own weapon.
I fired.
My nanocomp kept me running on super-speed, giving me plenty of time to track the blue glob of energy sizzling from the barrel in slow motion. The shot had no recoil, though, so the whole affair felt slightly anticlimactic.
Thoughts of anticlimax were scrubbed away when the pulse exploded with enough force to rip the slabs of wood from their hinges and nearly knock me onto my ass.
Thankfully the door to the President's office had been constructed from decorative wood rather than an energy-absorbing material. Whoever designed that floor hadn't considered the possibility that anybody would make it past the building's defensive protocols. They couldn't be faulted for not anticipating a crazy ex-cop and his partner getting a key to the city and blasting their way in.
And yet there we were.
Smoke defiled the air. It stung the inner lining of my nose and throat as I stepped through the carnage and into the room.
A dozen impeccably, if not similarly, dressed men and women sat around a large oval table. I locked onto the only one that mattered. The man sitting at the head of the table.
President Richard Jennings.
Two bodyguards standing behind the President drew their weapons with the practiced ease of professionals, the pointy ends of their guns aimed at my head.
"Easy, fellas," I said, applying a couple pounds of pressure to the trigger of my own gun, aimed at President Jennings. It floated along that razor's edge where the slightest twitch would make me the most famous assassin in Unity history. "I don't intend on hurting anyone, but I also don't wanna get shot, so let's make a deal. Put your guns on the floor and back away from the table, and we won't have to hold an emergency election to decide President Jennings' successor."
"Alaina?" one of the men said, staring over my shoulder. The battle focus drained from his eyes, leaving in its place the type of confusion that has a physical weight.
"Put your gun down, Brad," Raines said. "We're here on Peacekeeper business."
Moreau looked as if he'd come straight from a soldier-for-hire catalog. Square-cut hair and boxy shoulders gave him the silhouette of rectangles stacked atop one another. His presence of stature compensated for his height, which was shorter than I'd expected.
If he'd looked angry before, now he looked downright murderous. His eyes didn't waver in their attempt to kill me by sight alone.
Moreau opened his mouth to say more, but I didn't have time for him and Raines to work through their domestic issues. Time was fleeting. A luxury that would soon expire.
"Mr. President, this ends poorly for two guys in this room if people start pulling triggers. Do us both a favor and tell your men to stand down," I said, holding the leader of Unity between my sights.
Jennings' expression was flat, hollow. He tilted his head and flicked a dismissive wrist. Moreau balked while the other guard complied like an automaton. After an extended period of deliberation Moreau dropped his weapon to the floor and took two steps away from the table.
I relaxed the muscles in my arm, allowing the weight of the gun to sag at my side. Without the imminent threat of having another hole added to my face I studied the startled faces of the people in the room.
There was something oddly familiar about all these faces. Most of them, at least.
And then the light bulb went off—these were the leaders of the twelve Districts.
Shit.
Raines and I were holding the entire Earth government hostage.
That took the situation from bad to worse, but only marginally so. A depressing reflection of our day up to that point.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
Gravity Is A Fickle Ally
More interesting than the leaders of Unity, however, was the mystery gentlemen sitting across the table from Jennings. He wore a shimmering black robe crisscrossed with elaborate veins of red rising off the hem in exotic patterns. His raven hair, pulled into a queue, added an angular sharpness to his face.
Despite all that, his olive skin was his most distinguishing characteristic. Nobody had vibrant sun-kissed skin like that in a world perpetually overcast with sagging gray clouds. Raines, the nearest approximation of an Easterner I'd ever seen, appeared porcelain by comparison.
It took a second for my mind to fill the gaps left between clues. Another second to doubt the hypothesis. And a third to accept the inevitable conclusion that I must be looking at a Japanese delegate.
As if in response the gentlemen faded from existence, vanishing with the breeze.
"Well, that was weird," I said.
Raines, standing beside me with her pistol aimed in the general direction of the table, nodded.
/>
"What was that?" I asked.
"A hologram." President Jennings regarded me with indifference. "Have you come for a lesson on refracted light?"
"I'll manage."
I'd never seen such a realistic hologram without first blinking into the Stream. That it was commonplace here spoke of the technological gap between the Uppers and the rest of the population.
I squeezed the pistol tighter and ignored the knot rising in my throat.
"Perhaps you would like to share with us your reason for intruding?" Jennings leaned back in his chair with an ease better suited for an evening around the fireplace with loved ones.
By comparison, a quick scan of the faces around the table turned up a whole lot of fear, and not much else.
Best to be direct and use the power of peer pressure to my advantage.
"We were in the neighborhood and thought we'd stop by and see which of you helped Malcolm Wolfe escape Pause."
Myriad new data poured in as the District leaders gave me more than fear to work with.
"I gather this is news to most of you." I kept the majority of my focus on Jennings, for all the good it did me: he had the emotional range of a machine.
"No," Madame Cavanaugh, from District Four, said, "I'm afraid we have not been informed of any such escape."
The collective gaze of the room shifted to President Jennings. If the attention bothered him, it didn't show.
Slowly, he stalked the room with his stare, locking eyes with each District leader for a long second until the delegates conceded dominance and looked away. All save for the elderly Madame Cavanaugh with her bird-pecked features that suggested she'd seen all the darkest sides of humanity during her lifetime, and wouldn't be put off by a staring contest with a man in a suit.
After considerable deliberation Jennings turned and said, "Mister...?" He held the word out, an invitation to familiarity.
"Call me Tom."
"Well, Tom." The ice melted in his voice as the smile that'd won him multiple elections creased his full lips. He gestured to what remained of the shattered door at my feet. "You've jumped to some rather dramatic conclusions."
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