Chemical Burn (34 page)

The First Domino

I swam a hundred slow laps to cool off while Xen continued his research on the laptop from a lounge chair on the patio. My skin turned back to normal, so I got out of the pool, walked past the engrossed chemist, and stepped into my bedroom through the sliding glass door.

“Can you do me a favor?” I whispered in her ear as I kissed her neck.

“Name it,” she said, kissing me firmly.

“Do you trust Marsha?”

“Completely.”

“Then can you find a way to bring her into the fold about all this? She’s going to have to know about the doors, at least. If you can find a way to keep it at that, great, but she’ll probably want to know more. Tell her what you have to, but don’t offer much.”

“Sure. I think I can do that. Why me?”

“Practice. You have to get used to tap dancing around this topic, and I trust her completely. There’s little that can go wrong, no matter what you say, and you’ll know what it’s like to avoid certain subjects.”

“I’ll do my best.”

“I believe that will always be more than enough, Rachel.” I smiled and kissed her again. “Marsha will be back in a few hours, and Xen and I have to go take care of some business back at the loft.” She nodded as I stepped towards the door. “Oh, one more thing.”

“Yes?”

“When you talk to her, do it any place but the kitchen … preferably outside.”

“Why?”

I winked at her without answering and went back outside.

As I closed the door, I turned to look at her. My insides ached for her in a way I’d never experienced before, suddenly taken again with the dread of losing her. I also feared her ever seeing what Xen had just witnessed. I couldn’t change my nature, even if I wanted to, and the fact is I am very different from humans in many respects. I’m very different from j’Tarians as well, and it pleased me that I would finally have someone to share my life with, beyond Magdelain anyway. I could only hope that Rachel wouldn’t ever be too scared to be with me.

I went back out on the patio, and Xen looked up from the laptop, setting it aside on the table next to him. “I have what you wanted.”

“Logistics?” I asked.

“Schedules, volumes, and destinations. They’re a month old, but the previous month’s report isn’t all that different, so there doesn’t seem to be that much flux. It’s simply gotten bigger. Do you think Jackie spent most of his time at the plant or at the downtown office?”

“I looked that up. He generally goes to the plant. I’m guessing because there’s a smaller chance of running into anyone. “

“That sounds like Jackie. Life of the party … if he’s the only one there, anyway.”

“You’re not that much different, you know,” I said, smiling.

Xen gave me a hurt,
I’m-completely-offended
look and then chuckled. “Yeah, well, I’m much better looking.”

“Not with that haircut!” I chortled. His rounded skull had grown a dark layer of stubble. I grabbed the laptop. “Come on.”

I headed into the house, and Xen followed.

“Where are we going?”

“The loft. I want to check on Mag, and I need to use one of my terminals.” I looked thoughtful for a moment.

“Sounds to me like you’re already getting domesticated, mister,” he said and chuckled some more.

I rolled my eyes at him.

“
Anyway
,” he continued, “I asked about where Jackie spent most of his time, because wherever that is will most likely have the most recent data.”

“I was thinking the same thing,” I agreed. “That’s where you’ll be going when we hit the place Sunday night.”

“Me?”

“Yep. And you’ll be in their office building alone.”

“Great,” he said dejectedly.

“Don’t worry. I’ve got it all worked out … well, mostly. There shouldn’t be anyone in there.”

“I thought you said Jackie liked to work nights … what if he shows up?”

“He’ll be otherwise occupied. Trust me. And here,” I handed Xen the laptop as we stepped up to the front door. I put my hand out on the panel, ran through the combination and pushed the door open into the loft. We stepped through.

“Mag!” I shouted. “Set up with the laptop over there,” I said to Xen, pointing to the desk. “And use the chair. I’ll stand. Send that logistics stuff to O’Neil, and let him know what’s in it. If his guys haven’t found it yet, that’ll speed things up for him.” I headed for the fridge, pulled out some orange juice, prepped it with sugar and guzzled it. “You want something?”

“I’m good,” he said, shaking his head.

I pulled out my phone and composed a text as I walked back over to the desk. Mag came bounding in from the closet. “Hey, Mag. You want to spend a few days at the house?”

She shrugged and gave me an
Okay, sure
look.

“Alright, go eat something big, okay? And you’ll have to stay cougar while you’re there. Marsha’s staying with us.” Mag nodded and went back out the way she came. I finished the message and hit SEND.

“What are you sending?” Xen asked, looking up.

“Telling O’Neil to look for the data. You send it yet?”

“Going out now.”

“Okay, compose a second one to him and give him a detailed description of how it all works.”

“You got it.” Xen started typing.

I stepped up to my computer, put on the circlet, tilted the monitors so I could see them from a standing position, and powered them up. “Search: VeniCorp systems,” I said.

“What are you doing?”

“I’m going to create a user account for you and set up a card. It should give you maintenance and admin access, and then tonight we start setting off alarms at the office.”

“What for?”

“Simple. If I disable the system from here any time between now and Sunday, someone could notice and turn it back on. You and I are going to make it look like the system is sending false positives. They’ll turn the system off until they can get it fixed, which should buy us the time we need.”

“What if they fix it before we go?”

“I’m going to fix that, too. They use ConSek as their vendor. I looked that up while I was researching the VeniCorp hit. Their trouble ticket is going to mysteriously end up at the bottom of the pile. It’ll be next week before they complain about it, and by then … well, it won’t matter.” I turned back to my screens and raced through data, finally pulling up a list of users for the building’s door and network access. I scanned it quickly. “Perfect.”

“What?”

“Take a look. They’ve got an Ops guy with fat fingers who is also lazy, apparently.”

“How can you tell?”

“Dupe logins with transposed characters. He even did one for Jackie … god, how I love Ops guys. It’s guys like that who make my life
so
much easier.”

Xen watched as one of the user boxes centered and grew on the screen. I pulled up the keyboard, rapidly typed characters into two boxes for the user SHOAJ and closed out of the box. I opened a drawer and pulled out a pen and sticky, quickly scrawling something on it.

“Here,” I said, pulling off the sticky and handing it to Xen. “Memorize this.”

USER: SHOAJ

PASS: B@ND1T

DOOR: 1234

“There, see … the
O
and
A
are transposed. Their guy should have eliminated the account. Instead, he gave me a Christmas present.”

“Why the funky password?” Xen asked.

“They require strong encryption … needs a special character and a numeral. That ‘I’ is the number one. Someone on their team knows what he’s doing, at least.”

I grabbed one of the Prox II cards sitting on the desk and slid it into the imprinter. Navigating to the door system, I pulled up the SHOAJ account and activated it. The light turned green on the imprinter after a few seconds.

“Here,” I said, pulling the card out and handing it to Xen. “Don’t lose this either.” Xen stuck the note to the card, folded it around, and then slid the whole thing in his pocket.

Mag walked into the room, her muzzle and claws stained with blood.

I looked up and nodded. “At around midnight we’ll use the door to enter their building, walk around the inside of the office, set off the alarm, and then leave … and do it again at three a.m. Twice tonight, once Tuesday, none on Wednesday and two or three times on Thursday. By then they should disable the system until they can get it repaired.”

“Are you sure?”

“I’ve done this more times than you’ve had cheeseburgers … and on dozens of worlds. Like I said, Ops guys are the same all over.” I smiled and winked at him. “Let’s head back. Marsha’s probably back from Grady’s, and we have to do our workout.” I stood up and headed for the door. “We’re changing things up a bit tonight.”

Xen shot me a questioning look, but I didn’t offer more. I hit the palm reader and pushed the door open onto the foyer in my house. “Come on, Mag. The bedroom patio door should be open.”

Mag nodded and darted through the door. I watched her tail disappear out onto the patio, heading for my bedroom. Xen and I followed her out to find Rachel and Marsha sitting in lounge chairs, their backs towards the house as they talked and laughed.

“Evening, ladies,” I called out.

“Well, if it isn’t the man of mystery himself,” Marsha said, turning to me and smiling a bit wickedly.

I raised an eyebrow at Rachel, and Rachel nodded back almost imperceptibly as a small smile hooked the corner of her mouth. Marsha didn’t pursue the subject, so I would have to find out later how much she’d told Marsha.

“Okay, you all ready for another session?” I asked. They both nodded. “Head on down, ladies. We’ll be there shortly.”

Xen and I changed quickly and went down to find the two women sparring lightly but with impressive speed.

“Alright, alright,” I said, interrupting them. “Stretching! I don’t want you cramping up before the fun begins.”

They spent fifteen minutes stretching out, and then I walked to the head of the mat. “We’re going to pick up the pace tonight, okay. So keep up.”

They took their positions, and I ran through all of the forms twice, but at about double speed. They were all breathing heavily when I finished. “Okay, tonight is all about defense in the face of greater numbers. To start, all three of you are coming after me. Observe how I position my body, where I look, and what I do and don’t turn my back to … This is about staying alive and buying time, nothing else. The one thing to remember is to use your
ears
. We’ll go for a while, and then the three of you will work with each other, two attacking one and rotating through a few times.

The three circled me, and I put my back to Xen, facing the two women. I relaxed my body and held my hands limply in front of me, slouching slightly in a wide stance.

“Full contact, if you please … BEGIN!”

I heard Xen’s
gi
rustle behind me, and I stepped forward fluidly. Both ladies shot kicks at my mid-section, and I leapt over in a tumble, coming up behind them as they turned to face me. Marsha came in fast at my head. I blocked to her inside and stepped away, putting Marsha between Rachel and me. Xen came in again with a kick that I sidestepped, stepped back away from as I twisted. All three of them were now in front of me.

They looked at me, clearly impressed.

“Do you see? It’s all about movement.”

They nodded and came in again.

We worked like that for thirty minutes. Each of them got in a few body blows, and Rachel even clocked me across the jaw, but everything else missed or was blocked by hand, forearm, shin, or foot. As the fight progressed, I developed an even keener appreciation for my students. The three of them wordlessly began working together, becoming a single unit that anticipated what the other was doing. They started to predict where my avenues of escape were and closed them off. It was damn impressive.

My heart swelled with the pride of any teacher whose students start to become masters themselves.

“Enough!” I called out, and they all froze. “Okay, head gear, everyone,” I ordered, running my hand over my jaw where Rachel had tagged me.

“Sorry,” she said abashedly.

“Don’t be,” I said earnestly. “It was a solid hit. The three of you were really working well together. You should be proud of yourselves.” They all smiled. “Okay, five minutes each. Rachel, you defend first, then Xen then Marsha. Rotate through for an hour.
Light
contact. I’m heading upstairs for a while.”

“You’re not training anymore tonight?” Rachel asked.

“No … I have to cook dinner for you all.…” I paused and looked at Xen with a sardonic smile. “Besides, I got my workout this afternoon … right, Xen?”

“Yeah.” Xen nodded his head and put an understanding hand out on my shoulder.

“Get cracking, you three. Remember, light contact only, but don’t go easy on anybody. And watch out for Rachel’s right. It comes out like a rail gun.”

I left them to their training, headed upstairs and prepared chicken basil pesto over penne. They’d need the carbs and protein after the past two nights.

O O O

“Xen, wake up,” I said gently. Xen opened his eyes and saw me silhouetted in the doorway. “It’s time to take a visit to VeniCorp.”

He rolled quickly out of bed and realized that I wasn’t wearing anything. “You’re going like that?” he blurted, looking down at his boxers. “I figured we’d need to change into black outfits or something.”

I tossed him a pair of the vision goggles. Xen caught them and slipped them over his head, resting them around his neck. “VeniCorp is in the next room, and there’s nobody there. I checked the access logs. You can put something on if you like, but I figured you’d want to get back to bed as soon as possible.”

“I do.” Xen shrugged and followed me out.

We walked to the front door, I ran through the combo, and pushed the door open onto a short hallway and dark office space beyond. We both put on our goggles.

“Hey, these are cool!” Xen said as he looked around, everything looking as if it were in daylight.

“Leave the door open and let’s go.”

We walked down the short hall and looked around.

“That’s the stairwell you’ll use to go upstairs where Shao’s cubical is.”

Xen looked down the hall and nodded his head. When he looked out the window, the goggles magnified whatever his eyes were focusing on. “This feels really weird, you know?”