Arc Angel (32 page)

“Not us, maybe, but you. Bryce, I can try to fix your heart. Right here, right now.”

Before she’d even finished speaking, he’d begun protesting.

“That’s crazy, Miranda. You heard what Dan said. It will kill you. No.”

“He said it might kill me, not that it definitely would. Come on, it’s worth a try.” The power flared another notch. She was almost sure she could harness what she’d need. Five minutes wasn’t a lot of time, but if she could start the process, and let Arc Angel take over, the superhero might be able to fend off the goons and get Bryce out of here. Or maybe not. Those dampeners were damn powerful. But she was still willing to try.

Bryce took her face in his hands.

“Miranda, you know that if by some small miracle fixing me doesn’t literally kill you, you’ll have stayed as Arc Angel too long. You won’t be able to get rid of her. You’ll disappear.”

Tears squeezed out the corners of her eyes and ran down her cheeks. The idea of being subsumed by Arc Angel terrified her, but not as much as the idea of Bryce dying. If she healed him, and got him out of here, it would all be worth it. He could go back to leading the life he was meant to lead, while she could… become a superhero. Forever. On the bright side, if she truly became Arc Angel, she probably wouldn’t remember her feelings for Bryce. She wouldn’t even know she was missing him. Maybe that would make the pain she was feeling bearable: knowing that it would end when she ended.

“It would be worth it,” she whispered, not meeting his eyes. “You’d be fixed, and I could get you out of here.”

“Absolutely not. I’m not going to risk losing you for good just so I can take up jogging again. Besides, this place is pretty comfortable, as far as prisons go. Not the Ritz or anything, but… I’ll be fine. Don’t worry about me.”

His typical attempt to make her laugh only made her cry harder. Bryce used his thumbs to wipe away her tears and then tilted her head up until she met his gaze full-on.

“Seriously, Miranda. I can live without my health being 100%, and I can live with being trapped in this crappy room. But I can’t live without you. I know you want everything to go back to how it used to be, but I have to warn you that whatever happens with my heart or your powers, you are not going back to status quo. I am not going to let you go back to hiding away from the world, from me. I know that if I truly care about you, I should support you in getting what you want most, and I’ve tried to accept your desire for privacy, but I just can’t. I’m selfish that way. So you are going to get us out of this, so that I have the time to convince you to stay with me.”

And there it was. The answer to all of her unasked questions surrounding their test results. It didn’t matter what she could or couldn’t do for him. He chose to be with her. With Miranda.

Now the tears that sprang to her eyes came from happiness, not fear or sadness. He wasn’t going to pull away. She wouldn’t lose him, at least not by his choice.

She leaned in, wrapped her hands around his neck and pulled his face down to hers. He responded with a strength matching her own, and their lips and tongues met and tangled. The love play had a twinge of desperation as each wondered whether this might be the last chance they had to be together.

But her concern for his condition outweighed even her need for him and, after what seemed like only a moment, she pulled back a notch and rested her forehead against his. His hands smoothed her hair, sweeping it away from her face.

“Bryce, I’m so sorry I dragged you into all of this…” He tucked a hand under her chin and raised it so he could see her face.

“Don’t apologize. If you’d never dragged me into this, well, I’d be in far worse shape than I am now. We’ll get through this. I don’t know how, but we will. I just found you. I’m not ready to let you go.”

“They’ll be in here in a minute. If you won’t let me try to fix you—” he touched her lips with his fingers to stop her words. She kissed them and continued, “—then what are we going to do?”

“Maybe we have to do what he wants, at least for now. You can go in, get the artifact, and then zap him before he knows what hit him.”

Miranda remembered the sensation of cold metal encircling her wrist and shivered. “Can’t. He’s made me my own personal dampener. A lovely silver bangle. I’m just sorry he didn’t bother with the matching earrings and necklace.” Her attempt at humor fell flatter than roadkill. She cleared her throat and continued.

“It’ll go right back on the minute I leave the museum. The only reason I don’t have it on now is so he can guarantee that I’m charged back up to full capacity before I need to run my little errand.”

Bryce wrapped his fingers around her now-empty wrist, his warmth chasing away the bracelet’s chill. “He’s thought of everything, hasn’t he?”

“I hope not.”

There was a knock at the door, and it immediately swung open.

“Time’s up.”

Bryce pulled her to him for one more lingering kiss.

“I know you’ll think of something,” he whispered. “You’re my hero, Miranda James.”

She kissed him back in reply, then rose and backed away, holding on to his hand as long as possible until the distance became too great and their fingers parted. Whatever else happened, she would save him. She had to.

Miranda followed John back into the elevator and up to the office next to Mr. Brown’s, almost anxious to get the caper underway. The sooner she got started, the sooner it would be over, for better or worse.

She sat down and inspected the workstation that had been assembled for her. Not quite as good as what she had at home, but not bad. John tossed down a plastic ID badge, identified by photo and name as belonging to Jennifer Copley.

“We’ve done most of the preparation already, miss. We’ve been scanning the museum’s network for the last month and completed our access this morning. You have full administrative access to their entire system.”

With a small bow, he stepped back and took up position just inside the door. Great. An audience.

Well, what the hell was she going to do now?

She thought about Bryce, Dr. Harris, Matthews, Kate… her mind and stomach whirled with fear.

Apparently, she was going to break into the Elder’s Grove Museum.

Chapter 23

Miranda was determined to do as much of this job as she could electronically, rather than electrically. She may have no choice but to become Arc Angel once she hit the special security systems surrounding the artifact, but she had more than enough skill to get inside the building and through the basic security precautions on her own.

She accessed the museum’s security system to see what she was up against and breathed a sigh of relief. Piece of cake. They’d accessed the museum’s system exactly as she would have, which made sense since they were going to pin the robbery on her. But at least it made her job easier.

In minutes she’d given Gift Shop Clerk Jenny Copley full access to the museum, changing her clearance to a level held only by the top curator. It wouldn’t take any security expert worth her salt more than a minute to discover the change, but no one would be looking at the system until tomorrow morning, after the theft had been discovered, and Miranda didn’t have time to worry about what might happen the next day. She was too busy worrying about what would happen in the next few hours.

She pulled up the building’s blueprints to determine the artifact’s exact location.

“John,” she called over her shoulder, not bothering to even turn around.

“Yes, miss?”

“Where are we?”

“Uh…”

“I assume we’re close to the museum, probably right next door, in fact, but I need to know which side we’re on so I can determine the best approach.”

“Uh…”

“Chop chop, John! Clock’s ticking! I need this information, and I need it now!”

“We’re in the next building over. East side.”

“Now see, that wasn’t so hard, was it?”

Miranda pulled up a city map showing the Hampton street area.

What a surprise. The building currently housing both Bryce and Miranda? The Tech Corp building. The same damn company accusing her of illegally accessing their network. Mr. Brown couldn’t have done a better job of laying the groundwork for her arrest. The bastard.

Miranda forced herself to focus on the task at hand. No point in getting pissed off right now, or at least any more pissed off. She had work to do.

Coming from the east, she’d need to cross an alley and then could access the museum from the back through a service entrance. Her ID badge could get her through, no problem, but what about the human factor?

She searched the museum’s security system to see who was logged as being currently in the building. Four names, all with the same title: Security Specialist. Okay, they had beefed up their night watchmen program for the grand opening. No problem. She could pull up their routes to see when they’d be crossing through the areas she’d be accessing.

Uh oh. Not good. Three of the four security guys were following prescribed paths throughout the museum. Some of them cut a little close to her entryway and path to the east wing, but not in close enough proximity that she couldn’t avoid them. It was the fourth guy causing her heartburn. According to that evening’s job roster, the fourth security guard was stationed immediately outside the room housing the newly acquired artifact. And he wasn’t moving until 6 a.m., when he’d be relieved by a different guard. Damn.

Well, she’d cross that bridge when she came to it. She checked her watch: 9:30 p.m. Her eyes widened in shock. What had those goons done to her in Dr. Harris’ clinic to knock her out for almost 8 hours? No time to worry about it now. And at least it had given her the time she needed to get past her typical Arc Angel hangover state.

Ideally, she needed to enter the museum at 10:35 p.m., when the guard closest to the east perimeter would be the farthest from the service entrance. If she missed that window, she’d need to wait another hour to guarantee a decent distance. That meant she had less than an hour to complete her research.

Assuming she got in and past the guards without a problem, she still faced the two biggest stumbling blocks: the special security on the artifact itself. Miranda dug deeper into the network and finally found what she was looking for: details on the laser sensor system and the pressure detector. Crap.

Whoever had set up the museum’s security was smarter than the average bear. Both of the additional systems were listed as being fully online, but the systems running them weren’t anywhere on the regular network.

Where the hell had they hidden those two systems? The only logical answer was that they had been put on a completely different network, and the most logical choice for that other network was the Elder’s Grove PD’s. Double crap. Miranda didn’t doubt that she could access the police department’s network, but she couldn’t do it in the next half an hour without tripping a million alarms. She was good, but she wasn’t superhuman. Well, not like that.

And as much as she’d love to have the police come swooping in, saving the day, she didn’t see any way that that glorious scenario ended with Bryce alive and well and Miranda a free woman. So unfortunately, she’d need to keep this one under their radar as long as possible.

Miranda leaned back in her chair, took a deep breath and slowly exhaled. Looks like she’d done as much as she could electronically; the rest would have to be electrical after all. She tried to suppress the shiver that ran down her spine. She’d barely regained control after Arc Angel’s last visit. Tapping into her in the museum—and for the necessary length of time and level of delicacy, she had no choice—might be too much. Miranda might never come back. Her body would be alive and well, but everything that made her
her
, her soul, she supposed, might very well simply fade away.

But if she refused to try, or failed in the attempt, how long would Mr. Brown keep Bryce around? An hour? A few minutes?

So that was her choice: save Bryce’s life or keep her consciousness, albeit in a jail cell somewhere.

Arc Angel’s origin story popped into her mind. Miranda had always thought Karen Crawford lived a bland life, and figured the woman was probably glad she’d turned into Arc Angel. But with her newfound perspective, she knew firsthand how difficult it must have been. And yet Karen had been willing to sacrifice herself to save some homeless man she didn’t even know. Surely Miranda could be brave enough to save the man she loved.

Because she did love him. Faced with the most difficult decision of her life, she didn’t even hesitate. She’d do whatever it took to save Bryce. Whatever it took.

The door to the office swung open, and she swiveled around, ready to go another round with Mr. Brown.

But it wasn’t Mr. Brown standing in the doorway, it was Gavin Brooks.

Miranda had been much too busy dealing with the possibility that all her friends were dead to really register the reporter’s presence earlier, but now he had her full attention.

“Gavin Brooks. What a surprise. You always do seem to turn up any time there’s a hint of trouble. If you’re not actually causing the trouble yourself, that is.”

“Ah, Miranda. Always good to see you. I just stopped by to let you know that you’ll be seeing quite a bit more of me, later tonight, assuming all goes well next door.”

“Are you throwing me a victory party?”

He chuckled, his white teeth gleaming menacingly.

“Not exactly. After he’s gotten the artifact, Mr. Brown has promised me I can go live with the Arc Angel story. So after you’re done tonight, you’ll be sitting down for an interview with me.”

“Like hell I will!” Miranda was surprised to find that after all the tough choices she’d grappled with over the last few days, she still had a sense of moral outrage.

“Oh, I’m sorry, didn’t Mr. Brown tell you? Mr. Campion’s release is dependent on your cooperation with
all
of tonight’s activities.”

Shit. One more hoop she needed to jump through, one more cage to get out of.