The Rush (2 page)

She scanned the woman first, moving in diagonally behind
her, as if Mia were trying to get closer to a detail in the painting. Truth be
told, this wasn’t one of Mia’s favorites, but you grabbed the scans where you
could. Mia stepped back to read the results.

They were pretty standard for what Mia had been finding
overall with fine art lovers. Increased dopamine, serotonin, and norepinephrine
levels along with increased activity in the cerebral cortex. Peace and
pleasure, along with a boost in the overall feeling of intelligence.

Another exploratory pass left Mia with information on the
guy. The results were fascinating, if not outright hysterical. Sex. That was
pretty much all the scan showed. Sex, heavy on boredom with a smidgeon of
irritation. Apparently, this man was here at the museum only as a ploy to get
the young woman into the sack with him. For shame.

Thinking this through, Mia realized this could be another
application of the scanner. Use it as a dating tool. Scan your guy for sex
thoughts. Is he there for love or for lust? The commercial copy practically
wrote itself.

Then, finally, perhaps her parents would lay off. Maybe if
she were financially successful enough, they’d forget she was single…and
apparently, according to her mother, barren. Their feeling was if they were
lucky enough to live outside China and its one child rule, you’d better make
the best of it. At this point Mia was pretty sure her parents would totally
embrace a grandchild out of wedlock.

Mia only had one thing to say to them. Not. Going. To.
Happen.

Then the couple shifted and murmured, looking as if they
were getting ready to move on. Time for Mia to go as well. She had learned this
from painful experience. Staying in one area scanning patrons for too long was
what contributed to invitations to never return to said institution.

As she started packing away her scanner, she saw another
patron enter from the opposite side, moving toward de Vinci’s Mona Lisa, where
Mia was headed next. The visitor was a man that looked to be in his late
forties, dark hair peppered grey at his temples. He was wearing a black mock
turtleneck with well-pressed Chinos and ebony loafers, the picture of aging
European masculinity. The man was walking slowly, but with precision, his eyes
directed straightforward rather than observing the artwork on either side.
Maybe Mia had time for one more victim.

Perfect time for a walk-by scanning. Timing it with
precision, Mia transferred the device from the hand on the far side of the
patron to her closer hand just as she passed him. She then swiped the scanner
up the man’s spine and around the back of his head before flipping it back into
her purse. Mia picked up her pace, not slowing until she neared the Mona Lisa.

Ducking into an alcove, Mia checked the scanner to see what
she had picked up. Should be another good baseline model for her to use for her
“control group.”

Aggression.

This was getting weird. One strange reading like that in a
day was not unusual. Even two wasn’t enough to raise Mia’s hackles. But that
plus the guy in the green coat? Maybe there was something in the air. Mia had
certainly woken up on the wrong side of the bed, but she doubted a scan of her
brain would show that she was likely to engage in violence any time soon.

Shaking off the negative trend, Mia moved on to the Mona
Lisa display. As usual, there was a fair-sized crowd surrounding the mystery
woman with the provocative smirk. While the crowds would normally make her life
more difficult, Mia found she had much most of her success around the more
famous paintings. Since everyone there was busy with their vid-discs and camera
drones, one more unidentified device amongst them didn’t usually raise anyone’s
guard.

It was also possible to get much closer to someone without
looking like a stalker. The only issue in spaces like these was getting a clear
scan on one individual. It required some innovation and creative posturing at
times.

Once she gathered enough beauty, peace, and universal love
readings to rescue her faith in mankind, she headed up to the second floor
where the French paintings were housed.

As she entered the older part of the Louvre, Mia passed through
the area where the temporary exhibits were housed. This month’s exhibit was the
world’s largest collection of star diamonds. Mia rolled her eyes at the crowds
that were gathered to peer at the tiny shards of rainbow-colored mineral.
Seriously, they were like a murder of crows, flocking around a shiny object.

Mia had heard that a star diamond chip that measured less
than a twenty-fourth of a carat had just sold for a million and a half US
dollars. What kind of insanity was that?

Even the way they had to be mined by hand seemed barbaric.
Star diamonds could be found only up on the moon, where asteroids filled with
the shiny crystals had struck on the dark side. They were undetectable by any
kind of location technology tested up to this point. In order to find the
little suckers, diamond hunters had to pan for them the same way miners had
done back two centuries ago during the Gold Rush, with the addition of
spacesuits and oxygen tanks.

Stepping through the crowds, Mia was jolted with another
thought. What if she scanned the brainwaves of the patrons here? She could
demonstrate that the star diamonds were invoking a more primitive animal
response, versus the more elevated cerebral cortex activity that paintings and
fine art caused. That would be an interesting addition to her findings.

Mia pulled out the scanner and moved in closer to the mob of
people, who she could now see, was the group that had bumped her upon entering.
Up front was the icy blond with the determined eyes. The woman spoke to her
group with an accent that sounded Swedish or Finnish…something Nordic, anyway.

As Mia passed one of the plasteel showcases housing the
diamonds, her scanner vibrated in her hand, indicating a completed scan.
Strange. She hadn’t thought she was close enough to pick up a reading on
anyone.

Searching the crowd to make sure no one had noticed, Mia
locked gazes with the tour guide. Steely blue eyes bored into her own, causing
Mia to flush and duck away. She shoved the scanner back into her purse, trying
to make the action seem as natural as possible.

Mia scuttled off to one of the corners of the exhibit,
waiting for a harsh voice of a virtual security guard to ask her what she was
doing. When nothing happened, she leaned against the wall, allowing her heart
rate to return to something resembling normal. That had been close. And more
than a little strange. Her scanner had never done anything like that before.

A quick check of the system revealed nothing out of order.
The battery was charged, the scanner seemed to be working, and all of the other
scans appeared normal. Maybe there had been some sort of interference from a
nearby vidphone. Or maybe there was something in the security measures the
museum was using on the star diamonds. They had to be keeping close tabs on those
little glass chips. All told, they were probably worth close to a billion
dollars. That had to be it.

Reassured, both by her hypothesis and the fact that no one
had come to search her purse, Mia prepped the scanner and got ready to step out
of her darkened corner. Just as she was about to rejoin the group and start
collecting data, the crowd around the exhibit started moving toward the nearest
exit. Mia guessed the tour group was on its way toward whatever else was
coolest this month at the Louvre.

As the tour guide followed the group, herding them forward
like so many sheep, Mia wondered at the woman’s tactics. Didn’t tour guides
normally lead from the front? As the guide passed through the doors of the
exit, she took a moment to pull them closed behind her.

Mia started to move out of her alcove, but was stopped by
movement from the opposite direction from which the tour group had gone. Two
men entered through the doorway and closed the doors behind them. Mia felt a
shock of recognition. One of the men was the older man that had scanned as
aggressive. The other was wearing an army green coat.

Something was definitely not right. Mia slunk back as far as
she could into the tiny alcove and watched the men through their reflection in
a rather gaudy Greco-Roman mirror. Mia could see bulges under their arms. The
kind of bulge a concealed weapon might make. Mia shrank back, doing her best
impersonation of being invisible.

As the three approached the star diamond case, Mia cast her
eyes around looking for an escape route or at least a hiding spot better than
this barely-recessed alcove. Just around the corner was a large temporary
structure containing all sorts of information on the formation of star
diamonds. This was one of the push-the-button-self-tour maze structures found
in so many museums that felt so very out of place at the Louvre. Out of place,
but oh-so-welcome to Mia in this particular moment.

The only challenge was entering the maze without being seen.
There was twenty-five feet to the entrance, through an area that was very
exposed and of course, brightly lit.

Hunkered down, waiting for any opportunity to practice her
museum sprinting skills, Mia watched the icy blonde type in some kind of
override code to the star diamond case. The thing opened with a whoosh of
hydraulics. Then all three thieves leaned into the case.

This was her chance. Mia slid off her loafers and sprinted
for the maze entrance. She slip-skidded across the slick marble floor, but
entered the maze without a sound. Mia would have made her escape cleanly if her
scanner hadn't suddenly gone berserk, vibrating away.

Mia froze, her heart in her throat, waiting for the
inevitable reaction from the trio.

And they did not disappoint.

“Did you hear that?” the blonde hissed.

“Bloody hell,” the older man said in a clipped British
accent. “That’s the sound I heard with that blasted woman near the Mona Lisa.”

“The Asian?” the Belgian growled. “She interrupted me while
installing slav cam.”

“Damn it, didn’t you check the entire floor?” the blonde
demanded. The Brit tried to explain, but the blonde overrode him. “Find her.”

Mia heard the two men move off, looking for the source of
the noise. The sound must have bounced and echoed, making her location more
difficult to ascertain. Mia picked up her jade scorpion and pressed her lips on
the stinger tail. A lucky break, just when she needed it most.

She could still get lost in the maze. Once the blonde had
secured all the star diamonds, Mia was sure the thieves would high tail it out
of here. The scanner activated again, vibrating so violently it nearly fell out
of her hands.

“The star diamonds,” the blonde hissed. Then she raised her
voice. “The Asian has found a way to track star diamonds.”

Mia froze. That couldn’t be true, could it? Had she someone
stumbled onto a way to find star diamonds? Remotely? The concept wasn’t
unprecedented. The dessert Jell-O was well known for emitting waves very
similar to brain waves. Did the star diamonds do something similar? Is that why
her scanner could pick them up?

Which would have been great, except for the whole fact that
an international team of thieves now knew about it. And the heavy steps of men
running didn’t help any. There was no way these people were going to just leave
now. Not when the scanner in Mia’s hand was worth a thousand of those trifling
baubles in the case.

There was only one real option here, but the thought of it
was terrifying. Mia had to take control of the situation. Now.

Before she could talk herself out of it, Mia charged the
wall, hitting the structure as hard and as low as she could. As she had
suspected, the temporary wall was only magnetically sealed to the floor. The
wall crashed into the star diamond display case, shattering the glass. Mia had
just a moment to see the look of shock and recognition on the face of the Swede
before she bolted back into the maze.

But the flare of alarms and flashing lights announcing a
break-in did not materialize. Bars should have come down over the doors.
Virtual security guards should have popped up in every corner. The lack of any
response gave her severe pause. Clearly, this trio had disabled any and all
alerts set in the exhibit. There would be no help from the outside.

But the die was cast. She didn’t have time to think of
another plan. The tour guide had seen where Mia was heading, so she was
effectively trapping herself inside the structure. What was done was done,
though.

Rather than bury herself in a back corner somewhere, which
her attackers would almost certainly expect, Mia went high, climbing up on top
of one of the displays. Her movements were smooth, silent. Her sensei would
have been proud.

And she listened. Soon enough, she heard the voice of the
woman moving toward her. Her tone held more than a few traces of pain and
irritation, giving Mia a perverse sense of satisfaction.

Mia pulled back from the leading edge of the display where
she perched, waiting for the first opponent to come along. She was used to
facing them in the ring. With rules and a referee. Oh, and barehanded.

The first person to appear was the older Brit, carrying some
sort of ceramic gun. Mia took a moment to enter a code into her scanner and
hide it on top of the wall before turning her attention back to the dapper
thief.

The man was wary, and by the way he moved, it was clear that
he had not allowed himself to go to fat. She waited until the man had passed
completely by her display, then leapt out, her foot aimed right at the back of
the Brit’s neck.

Some errant breath of air or sixth sense must have alerted
the man, as he spun halfway around, catching Mia’s kick square in the side of
his jaw. Rattled, but not down, the man roared, charging her. Mia dodged to the
side, catching the Brit on the back of the head with her two fists knotted
together. The hit sent the man careening into a wall where he slumped to the
floor, unconscious.