by Jeffrey Cook
“Please come out here and keep your hands visible.” one of the FBI agents said, readying his gun, keeping it leveled on the Director. Not seeing any alternatives, the Kimuras started moving towards the group. Mina hesitated, looking for any other option, but saw none that wouldn't place the others in more danger.
“Miss Cortez ...” the Director started, in a warning tone. “Nutcracker, 335,” she finished.
Before the words had processed, Mina found herself reflexively diving back through the doorway behind her, sliding across the floor in an arc to find herself behind a stone staircase. She was just coming to her senses, trying to figure out what brought that on, when she heard a pop and a high-pitched whine from beyond the door. She felt dizzy for a moment, but not enough to keep her off her feet. She raced back out, to find the Director kneeling on the ground, her cybernetic arm hanging as a dead weight. Mina's first impression was that she'd been shot in the arm. Everyone else in the area were looking dizzy and off balance, but seemed to be coming around. What's more, suddenly, they were processing in Mina's brain. She was reading stances, assessing recovery time, picking up on where all the guns were. She let her reflexes take her, not fighting off first impressions for the first time in a while.
In a blur of movement, she caught the arm of the FBI agent who had been nearest the door. She wrenched the arm around and over her shoulder so when he reflexively pulled the trigger, he shot one of the other gunmen. Before he could recover, Mina's fist struck a blow under his chin. Catching him as he fell, she used him as a shield to block the gunfire of the first of her opponents to recover their wits. At the second shot, she dropped the agent and tackled the other one low, coming under his gun. A grab and twist to his thumb broke the bone and let her steal his gun. As she was about to point and pull the trigger, the aluminum taste reminded her that FBI agents have their guns coded to them, so she threw it at the next nearest man, instead. His shot went wide as he tried to shield his face. Just enough time for Mina to cover the gap. This time, after a quick disarm, she was able to confirm that the gun wasn't coded to the single user.
Her peripheral vision picked up on Miko, who didn't seem to have been affected by the disorientation the others were suffering, letting her catch the armed woman off guard. As Mina was executing a chop to the gunman's throat, she registered Miko putting her opponent down and taking her gun. Both girls turned to look to where Dr. Kimura was wrestling with the last of the gunman who'd showed up. Two guns were pointed, in case. After all, the Doctor had, to Mina's assessment, suffered the same disorientation as the others, excepting Miko. He may have been disoriented by whatever happened, but he had taught Miko most of her martial arts lessons, and seemed to be handling himself better than the gunman, at least. He dropped his opponent with a combination of a knee to the gut, followed by an uppercut.
“You weren't kidding,” he finally said, looking around, moving to recover the gun of the person with whom he'd been wrestling.
Miko darted forward to hug her father as Mina went to check on the Director.
“I'll be fine,” the Director answered. “Check the agents and start moving. There will be a ton of security descending on us shortly. Then we need to talk, Miss Cortez.”
“Take Amiko with you,” Dr. Kimura said, starting to move away from the scene. “I'll lead attention away.”
“Daddy, no!” Miko started.
He looked directly at her. “I'll be fine, princess,” he told her, with a smile. “I have friends too. We'll talk soon,” he promised. “Go with them. Now.”
Miko chose not to argue further, moving back towards Mina and Director Richter. The Director spent a few moments looking like she also wanted to argue, but thought better of it on realizing the risk the doctor was taking on their behalf.
“My arm is dead weight until I reboot it,” she explained.
Mina confirmed that the two downed FBI agents were alive and breathing, but unconscious.
“Leave them,” the Director said flatly. “We need to hurry, and there should be plenty of witnesses soon who aren't on the take.”
“What was that, anyway?” Mina asked, as she helped the Director stand and move along with them despite the heavy, immobile arm.
“That was a short-range EMP built into my cybernetics. Emergency measures.”
“Okay, but what was the rest of that?”
“Duck and cover command. All of our agents have them. I gambled that yours was new enough, they wouldn't pick up on it right away. I had to get some cement between you and the pulse so you'd have a working chip.”
“So what else do I have programmed in that you can play Simon Says with?” Mina asked, a bit disturbed by the thought, yet focusing on being grateful for it.
“Very little, I promise. Specifically, nothing that will ever be used outside of emergencies. You have a safe place to go?”
“Yes, but we—”
“Then I'm coming with you. Clearly this goes higher than I thought. We need a plan, and we need to pool our information.”
They hijacked a new car, then abandoned it near one of the safehouses, before taking a circuitous route to the excavation zone Dr. Kimura had suggested, where Miko assured them a pair of sporting stadiums used to stand, and elements of them still did in the underground. Miko showed them to her father's supplies, letting them pick up low-light goggles, breathing masks, and gloves. As they went deeper into the underground hollows, Mina started investigating a few of the plaques.
“What is a Big Unit, and why did they have one?”
“It's not a what, it's a who,” Miko answered confidently. “It's just a nickname for one of their football players back then.”
“Oh.”
Miko was able to navigate them reasonably well through the underground remnants of the stadium until they finally found a space that had apparently once been a food court. While the plastic chairs were long since destroyed, some of the rubble suited well enough for the trio to settle in.
“So, what now?” Mina asked the Director. “Is there any other help we can call in?”
“Eventually, yes.”
“Eventually?”
“As soon as we get back to my offices, once we figure out a course of action, it will take both of us signing off on an emergency order to get more inquisitorial help. We need additional agents we can trust.”
“Doesn't the FBI have security screening procedures and loyalty aptitudes really similar to the AIA's? I was pretty sure that was the cavalry you arrived with originally.”
“Yes, and so was I. There is something extremely unusual in this case.”
“You don't say?” Mina found herself saying, before she could cut off the sarcasm.
The Director fixed her with a glare. “You should have remained laying low, wherever you were.”
“I'm getting that sense, yes. I just needed—”
“You just needed to follow orders. Now we have a civilian in the know, another one involved, and a lot of chaos. This is what happens when agents fly off the handle.”
“You mean like you did in Everett?” Mina finally found her voice to challenge a bit.
“Yes, like I did. I was lucky it didn't cost me more than it did.”
“You brought me in on this because I have direct knowledge of someone involved in the case! And I've found—”
“We nearly didn't bring you in at all,” The Director cut her off.
“So I heard. You recommended against my induction, didn't you?”
“I did,” The Director agreed. “Had it not been for Miss Lasko's ringing endorsement and Agent Park's uncertainty overriding my objection, your applications would still be in processing. Agent Park, much as he noted it was a dangerous deviation from protocol, wanted to see Tommy Escalante's granddaughter get her shot, and Miss Lasko thought you were the strongest of our available candidates.”
“I'm glad they did.”
“If they hadn't, it's possible Agent Park would still be alive.”
“A l
ot of things are possible. We just don't have enough information.”
“I agree on that. Unfortunately, this one lead you've been following doggedly from the beginning turned up a dead end. Nicolas Bergen is a small-time thug. Black market ties, yes, but most of his record has been on music discs, bootlegged games, things like that.”
“Uhm, who is Nicolas Bergen?”
“The owner of that car. He was the body found dead in it.”
“No, the owner of the car is named Raymond Harper.”
The Director startled, looking at Mina with renewed interest. “He certainly is not. Where did you find that name?”
“In the University directory. He was the one who put in for the University permit, and got it cleared without entering much of anything into the records. It was like someone just rubber stamped it.”
“That's because Raymond Harper is the co-director of University security. He doesn't need to enter anything to clear University campus passes.”
“So why didn't we talk to him, instead of Fulton, back during the investigation?”
“We had already spoken with Raymond Harper. He wasn't on duty at the time of the kidnapping. Fulton Hawkins was the security officer on duty. Raymond Harper had to be called in to consult with the Agent on the initial investigation.”
“Okay, so Harper still cleared the car with a pass right near the labs. There's no way an electronics smuggler with a record gets passed through like that. Wait ... so, just a thought, but wouldn't bootleg data files and the like be about the perfect place to hide—”
“All sorts of things, yes. Nicolas Bergen also knew plenty of people. He had no record of violence, but some of his known associates certainly did.”
“Okay, so someone silenced Nicolas Bergen. My guess would be that unless Raymond Harper's higher up the chain, if someone figures out that I pulled his records, he'd be in trouble.”
“And one of our sources of information disappears very quickly, yes. As much as I'd like to tell you to lay low, I think this is going to take both of us. I'll call in backup. As we saw previously, not every agent is corrupt. I'll just need to make sure the call gets plenty of attention.”
Miko chimed in, “Mina isn't going anywhere without me. She needs her sidekick.”
“Miss Kimura,” the Director began, “Your involvement with this case ends right here and now. Whatever your aptitudes and whatever you fancy yourself, you're not an agent.”
“I fancy myself someone who has proven to be a help already. What's more, I don't have a chip they already have all the counters for. I take full responsibility.”
“As a minor, and a civilian, that's not within your rights.”
“My father told me to stick with you guys, and given that they know I'm involved, I might as well make myself useful, right?”
“She has been useful. Some of these guys are programmed to counter everything we do,” Mina agreed.
“Very well. There's no time to argue. I'm going to call in backup and provide a distraction. You two need to see if you can locate Raymond Harper and find out what he knows about the death of Agent Hall, and possibly falsified reports.”
“Agent Hall? That was the hot one, right?” Miko asked.
Mina shot her a withering glance. “Agent Hall was one of the other agents. He was killed along with Agent Park, the guy who was training me.” She glanced to the director. “Where does he tie into this?”
“Agent Hall, under the guise of police work, surveyed the building and gave all security, all exits, and all personnel a pass. He was working with co-security director Harper extensively, so either he was somehow fooled, or ...”
“Or Agent Hall was a traitor.” Mina finished.
“Which should be virtually impossible,” the Director said.
“Only slightly more impossible than two FBI agents attacking you and two other agents and allying with black marketeers?”
“Something like that,” the Director agreed. “As soon as we secure Harper and find out what he knows, we're going back to the offices and filling out an emergency order for additional backup.”
“We?”
“Safety measure. As long as there's at least two agents in the field, it takes both to declare a sufficient state of emergency. I would say this qualifies.”
“All right, and if Raymond Harper knows something about where the programmers are?”
The Director fixed her with a stare. “Send communications immediately, and follow your instincts. It seems you may be Tommy Escalante's granddaughter after all. So you get a little bit of a leash. Don't push it. Give me a four-minute head start, then find a vehicle and get to the University. We want all possible attention, so feel free to trip some alarms once you get close. I'll keep as much focus off you as possible, as the probable higher-priority target and focal point for more agents arriving.”
“Got it.” Mina assured her. As the Director headed for the street level, Mina looked to Miko and sighed. “Why do the hot ones always have to be evil?”
* * * *
The girls gave the Director her four minutes, then headed for the street. They quickly found a car Mina could hijack, then Miko took over the driving. She did her best to be inconspicuous until they got near campus, then she found a spot at one edge of the campus. Mina only had to think about the campus layout to get an idea where the main security offices were at.
Mina was about to round a corner to the entrance of the building when she picked up a faint hint of a familiar scent. She froze for a moment.
“Why are we stopping?” Miko asked, glancing about.
“Cheap cologne.”
“So we're stopping because we're back in high school?”
“No, no, the Body Spray Wall has a completely different kind of ugh-note. This one's less 'bro' and more 'brute.' The guys at the sandwich shop, and at the apartment wore the same stuff. It's ...not good. Could be someone else, but I don't think we should go in the front door.”
“So let's not go in there at all.”
“We need to find Raymond Harper, though,” Mina reminded her.
“Unless we can find Scott,” Miko reminded her. “I have a hunch. The obvious information trail leads to Raymond Harper, but what was it he did as far as his role in all of this?”
“He was working with Agent Hall,” Mina reasoned. “Investigating the computer center.”
“So if the thugs are split up between trying to find the big, scary lady and dealing with Harper ...”
“Then there can't be many of them there to stop us from taking a look,” Mina agreed, changing directions and hugging the building as they backtracked to head for the computer sciences and research center. She made her way in, seeing both the heavily secured path she'd traveled before and other halls leading about the sparsely populated building. Mina remembered the security system and had a feeling that someone had locked out her access. An idea struck her, and she headed for the first door to Scott's old workplace. As she expected, her retinal scan didn't pass. She settled in by the door.
Miko looked at her quizzically. “What are you doing? Can't you just hack through it or override something?”
“I don't need to. I know the local basement troll in residence, and he can get us through everything.”
A few moments later, Fulton Hawkins' head peeked out the door. “Agent Cortez? What are you doing here? Everything was cleared before.”
“By Co-Director Harper and the police, right?” she asked.
“Well, yes. Is there a problem?”
“Numerous problems, if you haven't noticed the number of security alerts going on upstairs.”
“Harper told me not to worry about those.”
“Yes, he probably did,” Mina agreed. “I need to take a look around this building. This is, uhm, Agent Kimura.”
“Yes! A promotion!” Miko answered, quieting when Mina shot her a look.
“She's new,” Mina explained. So, you can access everything in the building, right?”
&n
bsp; “Well, yes. Most of the work just goes on in my center. We found some temporary backups to maintain the necessities,” he explained.
“But there's more building. Did there used to be more computer centers in here as well?”
“A lot more,” he agreed. “I'll show you. There's nothing to see. They shut most of it down or moved unnecessary programs into other areas, depending on the discipline they worked most closely with, in order to be better able to keep track of the chipping center.”
“I'm sure they did. Just show me the other wings. And quietly. I don't want to set off any more alarms. There's enough going on upstairs.”
“What's going on upstairs?” Fulton asked.
“Raymond Harper is being arrested for gross violations of security code and aiding and abetting black marketeers,” Mina explained. “Which would be why he told you to ignore the alarms. I'd hate to have to bring you in as an accessory.”
“Black marketeering? You're serious?”
“Dead serious,” Miko answered. “Now let's get moving.”
The halls seemed to go on forever, with numerous abandoned wings, some of them supposedly under construction, with various danger signs. Poking around the first few turned up nothing, but eventually, after what seemed like a mile of twists, turns, and an elevator to another level, Mina paused at one of the construction zones. “Here.”
“What's so different about this one?” Fulton asked, clearly confused.
“No dust settled here, and there's an elevator directly up to street level at the end of this hallway, according to the directory.”
“Yes, but it's not up to code. They shut it down ages ago when they decided they didn't need a half-broken-down cargo elevator to empty hallways when they moved everything in this wing to the archives building.”
“Which would make it perfect,” Mina answered, passing the 'Danger' and 'Hard Hat Zone' signs, continuing to follow her nose and the lack of dust until she picked up on signs of greater habitation, and then light peeking out from under a doorway. She gestured, looking sternly at Hawkins.
“There shouldn't be anyone here,” he explained lamely.