by Tricia Owens
He said nothing. Maybe he disagreed with her. Or maybe, hopefully, he was thinking twice about his fascination with the bloodthirsty vampire. Sheridan sincerely hoped it was the latter, for his sake and for the sake of their friendship.
“What happens if you come for him and I’m there to stop you?”
It was her turn to sharply inhale. She’d thought she knew Elliott well, but she’d never glimpsed anything resembling resistance from him. Until now.
“Will you kill me, Sheridan, to get to him?”
“Don’t ask me that,” she whispered. “Please, Elliott. I don’t even want to consider such a scenario.”
“It might be a good idea if you did,” he said shakily, as though the words were nerve-wracking to speak. Red-faced, he grabbed his plate and pushed away from the table.
Sheridan felt awful as her friend hurried away. But, as with most emotions that didn’t aid in her work here, it eventually subsided. Blank-faced, she dug into her meal, even though it was cold. Even though the opportunity of deriving pleasure from it, like most things in life, had escaped her.
Chapter 11
The address Wolfgang had written down for me was a high-rise in the heart of an area dominated by science and medical buildings. The front of the high-rise was guarded not only by a doorman but a pair of security guards who were visible through the glass. More were probably deeper inside. There’d be no wandering in and having a casual look around. Instead, I looked up the building on my phone since it had a name: Victory City Heights.
However, no such listing came up on the internet. That struck me as suspicious. Information wasn’t available to the public over the internet for two reasons: the government had deemed it in violation of the War Misinformation Act, or the government didn’t want anyone looking at it. Why would this building be important enough to keep its existence offline?
Project Veil, according to Nathaniel, had aimed to create supernatural beings that would survive catastrophic natural disasters. He’d said three other scientists had worked on it alongside his father and Dr. Day. The names Wolfgang had given me—Blackmore and Rose—must belong to two of those scientists. Something important would be untangled here, with these men, in this building. I had to find a way inside.
I biked the perimeter. Victory City Heights encompassed half a block, sharing it with another skyscraper that, unlike its neighbor, did appear on the internet. I was able to learn that it held multiple businesses and offices dealing with everything from medical product sales to patient therapy. I rode my bike to its front doors.
Entering was a breeze and I casually walked to the elevators as though I knew where I was going. The lobby was busy with people so no one gave me a second glance. Once inside a car, I requested that someone push the button for the second highest floor.
The other riders eventually got off, leaving me alone to ride the final three floors. When I arrived at my destination, I exited the elevator slowly, not wanting to draw attention until I oriented myself. I faced a hallway that extended to the right and left of me. I was relieved to see it was filled with offices with closed doors. No one saw me as I hurried down the carpeted hallway until I reached the emergency stairwell.
“Excuse me.”
The voice behind me rang of authority. It was stern.
I knew better than to respond to it.
I shoved open the door as the male voice called, “Hey! Stop!”
After bursting onto the landing I raced up the stairs.
The door leading to the roof was marked to set off an alarm, but a quick bit of meddling removed the threat of that. I shoved outside and ran onto the roof.
Déjà vu hit me, dragging me back to my grandmother’s projection at Dandelion. For a second I was dizzy, my heart thundering, as I relived the sensation of falling off the building and plunging into the rushing glacial waters.
“This isn’t the same,” I gritted out. “That wasn’t real.”
Angry with my lapse, I deliberately ran across the roof to the side of the building that faced Victory City Heights. The gap between the two buildings was daunting—about thirty-five feet. Forty stories below curled a delivery access road. I didn’t look down for long. Despite my determined pep talk, I hadn’t shaken the sensation of falling to my death. It threatened to buckle my knees.
Focus on what you need to do.
I needed to get across. That, of course, required some ingenuity and skill. Fortunately, the roof of the building I was on was rife with material. I rushed back to the three dozen air conditioning units placed in grids across the roof, pressing my hands to the sun-warm metal surfaces and meddling quickly because someone inside was going to begin complaining soon when the cold air cut out.
A grappling hook was the obvious tool I could meddle. It would also be the safest method of getting me to the other building. I’d never meddled one before, but I knew how they worked. While the challenge of it appealed, the act of dragging myself across the rope once it was in place sounded physically tiring and too slow. I preferred risk over effort.
I meddled a catapult instead.
It required meddling two AC units together and reforming from there, but after a couple of minutes I had a spring-powered launch that I thought would do the job of hurling my weight across the gap.
If I was wrong, I’d just designed the device that would kill me.
As I gingerly took a seat on the bucket and brought my knees to my chest with my heels on the edge, I tried to anticipate how high I would fly versus how far. My nerves grew taut with uncertainty. Had I meddled the launching arm too short? Would it launch me directly above the gap between the buildings, leaving me to hit the apex at the worst possible point? Or would the opposite happen and it would fling me over the edge of the roof and straight down?
Uneasy, I meddled the launching arm six inches longer. There was only so much I could do because of the angle and the power of the spring. This was something that needed to be tested and adjusted first—
The door to the emergency stairwell burst open. Two men dressed in black suits rushed onto the roof. One of them saw me and pointed. “You! Stay where you are!”
I never was very good at following shouted commands. With a mental plea for luck, I flipped the restraining hook off the bucket.
The violence of the catapult action stole my breath. The arm flung me forward quickly and powerfully, the force of it tilting my head back. A scream curled up my throat as I passed over the edge of the roof and into the open air between the buildings. I saw the road beneath me. I felt the air around me with not a thing to support me. And then I crossed over the edge of the Victory City Heights building and soared another three feet before I hit the tar-covered roof. Tumbling end over end, my momentum didn’t stop until I smashed into the small building for the roof access stair.
With a grunt, I collapsed, my adrenaline so high I couldn’t feel any pain, though I knew I’d be sporting some impressive bruises soon. It was only the sound of shouting from the other roof that prompted me to roll onto my hands and knees. I didn’t look back at the security guards on the other building. There was no point. Panting, I climbed to my feet, wincing at a sharp pain in my hip, and stumbled to the emergency stairwell door. I dove inside.
On the landing, I caught my breath, but I didn’t want to linger. There was the chance the security team from the other building would contact the security in this one, so whatever I wanted to do, I needed to do it quickly. I hobbled down the stairs and tried to open the first door I came to. It was locked, requiring a code on the keypad for entry. I had to jog down four flights before I found a door without a keypad lock. I heaved the door open.
I’d entered a floor of the building that served as a sort of break room. About twenty people, dressed in anything from lab coats to jeans and hoodies, were scattered about the open layout, some shuffling along a buffet line, others seated at round tables. One end of the room held five sofas arranged around coffee tables. One young guy was stretched out on
one, arm thrown across his eyes as though he were taking a nap. The chatter around him was lively, punctuated every so often by laughter or exclamations of surprise or eagerness. It reminded me, somewhat, of my old school, Filkmore Academy. It absolutely wasn’t the laboratory I was looking for.
Victory City Heights was a skyscraper. Wandering from floor to floor, hoping to hit the jackpot, would take me a week. With security potentially coming, I had ten minutes, at best. Though I cringed at the thought of mingling and potentially exposing myself, I needed some guidance.
I drifted over to an arm of the buffet where a bored-looking woman stood behind four copper servers. As I approached, she reached beneath one of the covered servers and flame danced from the tips of her fingers to heat up the buffet’s contents. The pyrologist resumed her bored stance as I stopped in front of her.
“Looks good,” I said cheerfully, nodding at the metal server in front of me containing what looked like sliced potatoes.
“It’s the same dish served every day of the week.”
“Well, it’s looking better today than usual.” I surreptitiously wiped a bead of sweat from my temple.
She sighed and looked out over the room.
“I was just taking a break,” I went on as casually as I could with my racing pulse. “Dr. Rose was supposed to meet me by the cheese tray.” Please let there be a cheese tray. “You haven’t happened to have seen him, have you?”
“Since when would a Doc eat here?” She looked at me like I was an idiot. “They’ve got the Lounge.”
“Well, sure,” I agreed breezily, “but I can’t eat there so he had to meet me here. I guess I should just go see him while he’s working.” I frowned. “Someone told me his lab was being cleaned and that he’d been moved temporarily to the twentieth floor.” Please let the twentieth floor not be a spa.
“Cleaned?” She gave me a dubious look. “How can a biohazard floor get any cleaner than it already is?”
I kept my expression neutral. “Well, there was that accident a while back…” I shrugged.
“Accident?” She chuckled and crossed her arms. “Girl, if the Docs ever had an accident, you can kiss your ass goodbye. Who knows what would come roaring out of those labs.”
“Especially considering what Dr. Rose and Dr. Blackmore are working on,” I said with a knowing look. “I mean, monsters? For real?”
A funny look passed over her face. “You’d better not let anyone hear you say that.”
“I’m just joking, of course. I have a terrible sense of humor…as you can tell.” I shut my mouth to end my babbling. It wasn’t as easy stopping my whirling thoughts.
“Well, honestly, you’re not the first to do it,” the woman mused thoughtfully. “Especially with the V-Recode program. You ask me, playing with vampire genetics is asking for trouble.” She paled and looked around, as if afraid someone had overheard her.
But I needed her to keep talking.
“The V-Recode is what I meant,” I lied. “I heard they’re nearly finished with it.”
Her eyebrows climbed up into her hairline. “And how would you know that?” She looked over my clothing. “What department did you say you’re—”
“So Dr. Rose is still on that lab on thirty-two. Good.”
“I never heard of the Docs working on thirty-two. Bio hazard levels are ten through twelve. Like always.”
Her suspicion had reached critical levels. By the way her eyes flicked to either side, looking for someone in authority, I could tell my time was up.
“Guess I’ll go find him in his lab. Thanks for the chat.”
Not sticking around for her response, I walked as quickly as I could to the elevators, hoping my urgency wasn’t obvious. No such luck. When I hurried into a car and the doors began to close, I looked back at the buffet and glimpsed the woman speaking to another worker and pointing at me.
Not good.
I punched the button for twelve.
The car didn’t move.
An electronic voice came over the speaker. “Please provide access code.”
I tried floor eleven.
“Please provide access code.”
My nerves were shot. I pressed L for lobby.
The elevator began to descend. I slumped against one wall and mopped more sweat from my brow. Knowing I couldn’t get into the biohazard levels was something of a relief. I’d had enough excitement for one day.
Too bad it wasn’t over.
The elevator jerked to a stop.
“This is Sergeant McCabe with VCH security,” barked a gruff human voice through the speaker. “Identify yourself.”
I was busted. If I was captured and handed over to either the Victory City police or government agents, I’d disappear forever and my grandmother, left at Dandelion with unpaid bills, would be guided into the Crossing Program.
Failure, the albatross forever dangling from my neck, grew heavier.
“Or maybe not,” I declared determinately as I looked up at the ceiling.
I pressed my hands to the wall of the elevator, directing the molecules to bend the medal, forming handholds in the wall. I used them to climb up to the emergency hatch. Once pushed aside, I heaved myself through the square opening, hanging there by my upper body.
“Drop back to the floor! That’s an order!”
I ignored the voice and reached for the multiple hoist ropes attached to the elevator car. Severing the ropes and dropping the elevator would activate the governor and the bottom-mounted braking system. Besides that, security would be waiting for me in the lobby.
The only answer was to go up.
I meddled the hoist ropes, shrinking them rapidly. The metallic ropes jerked the car upwards. I shrank the ropes further, increasing the speed of the pull. Soon the elevator was racing toward the roof.
I dropped back inside and remained crouched on the floor as the elevator lurched to a stop as it met the resistance of the upper shaft brakes. Once the car stilled completely, I meddled open the doors and found myself faced with an emergency exit shaft. I leaped into it and found the stairs that would take me back up to the roof.
Escaping the interior security was one thing. I was now stuck on the roof of a skyscraper with no option of jumping or flying to the next building because the two security guards I’d evaded earlier had been joined by two more. The four men broke into excited shouting when they saw me.
I grimaced as I considered my options. In fact, there was only one.
The elevator mechanics were located inside the stairwell access building. It was a quick matter to destroy one wall of the building, reducing plaster to rubble and wood to splinters, so I could reach the heavy-duty machinery within. I pulled out huge chunks of metal, reworking the mass, my imagination in overdrive. I kept picturing my grandmother, standing atop a skyscraper in the midst of the fighting, fearless as the building began to collapse beneath her.
She’d been saved by the pigeons, summoned by one of the other freedom fighters who was an Animalia Medium. I didn’t have Elliott with me, but I hoped I could make do without him.
I crouched down and shrugged into the contraption I’d meddled from the elevator mechanics. I couldn’t help but laugh as I straightened up. The metal wings I’d fashioned fit snugly but not uncomfortably around my extended arms. Its weight was negligible on my shoulders because I’d kept the metal thin.
The guards on the other roof shouted some more as I began to run. Their voices disappeared from my consciousness as I took a breath for courage and dove off the roof.
The wind caught immediately, holding me aloft. The wings weren’t articulated well enough to allow me to flap them. But by tilting my shoulders forward and back I could control my glide as I began to fly a wide spiral toward the ground. I laughed aloud, proud of myself. Triumphant. As the floors passed by, I wished my grandmother could see this. I could have been a freedom fighter, too…
Then something happened. My brain short-circuited. Everything went white hot and painful,
my jaws snapping shut and nearly biting off my tongue. My limbs jerked taut and I lost control over them.
My vision went black and distantly, I felt a violent impact. Icy fire laced over my face and along my arms and then I was skidding, driven face first across something rough and soft at the same time. When I ground to a stop, I could do nothing but try not to die.
The thud of my heart was sluggish. Labored. Instinctively, I knew I should be dead. Maybe I had died. This feeling was familiar, and as I struggled to coherency, I berated myself for not expecting that the building would be staffed by specialists such as an Electro-Magnetist.
For a wild moment, I wondered if it had been Calia who’d struck me down. I pushed the thought out of my mind as I painfully pulled my knees beneath me and kneeled there, head down, fighting off unconsciousness. What felt like a thousand years later, I tipped my head back with a groan and looked around.
I’d crashed into a lower floor of the building, smashing through its windows and warping my wings in the process. I grunted as I shrugged the mangled metal off my shoulders. They hit the floor with a crash of broken metal.
I was in an office space divided by cubicles. Still woozy and not completely right in the head, I climbed to my feet and stumbled to the nearest cubicle. A chair, a desk. A computer. Photos and notes pinned to the walls. Nothing helpful.
I looked for the emergency stairwell and limped toward it. One of the cubicles caught my eye, though. Or rather, a photo pinned to its wall did.
Blood rushed faster through my veins as I hobbled over to the cubicle and stared at the photograph. It showed Dr. Day and a younger woman, both in lab coats, smiling cheesily. Was it possible I’d crashed onto the floor where Dr. Day kept all his notes?
An excited scan of the rest of the desk’s contents killed that hope. Other photographs showed only the woman alone or with friends. This wasn’t Dr. Day’s desk but possibly that of his assistant. Still…I eyed the computer tower sitting on the desk. I reached out and touched it. The plastic casing exploded, revealing the computer’s innards. It was short work to meddled the hard drive free. I reformed a stray piece of plastic into a ring that I attached to a corner of the hard drive and then clipped the thing to a carabiner on my belt.