The Nexus Series: Books 1-3 (16 page)

18

THE
business park was on a ridge at the edge of Korean Town.  The buildings
were modern, with strange glass-walled angles and vaulted foyers.  Between
the buildings were lawn-covered hills with occasional abstract fountains and
gardens along the paths.

At seven o’clock
sharp the last wave of businessmen and businesswomen had streamed out of the
offices to the central parking garage and driven away in their luxury
cars.  Dim light showed from the deserted foyers; lamps cast pools of
light on the abandoned parking lots and pathways.

The hooded guy
walked along one of the paths at the top of the ridge.  To the east the
skyline of the Avenue of Towers jutted against the distant shape of the Home
Planet.

He turned up the
ridge and made his way toward the parking garage.  He walked across the
bottom level of the garage beneath flickering fluorescent lights.

He was careful to
make sure the security cameras caught him.

“SHERLOCK
spotted the client,” Dizzie’s voice buzzed.  “He’s at the garage. 
We’re tracking him now.”

“Great,” said
Corey.  “We’re around the corner from there.  Let me know if he
moves.”

“He’s in the
elevator.”

“Then we’ll get a
little closer.”

The black car
pulled into the bottom level of the garage.  Corey got out, and Bradley
took the wheel.

“Wait here unless
you hear from me,” Corey told him.

“Okay,” said
Bradley.

“Okay,” Amber
said at the same time.  Her voice was shaking a little.

Corey approached
the elevator, gun drawn.  It was the one loaded with stunners—he kept his
other weapon holstered for now.  He pushed the button at the
elevator.  The panel above the doors said the elevator was at the seventh
and top level at the moment.  That was strange.  It started
descending.

When it arrived
at the ground level and the doors slid open, the only thing inside the elevator
was a small two-way radio.

“He’s on the
seventh level,” Dizzie reported.  “That’s not how it’s supposed to work.”

“It never works
like it’s supposed to on a mission,” muttered Corey.

“You brought
company,” a voice hissed from the radio.  “I told you specifically to come
alone.”

Corey took the
two-way and did his best Mr. Love impression:  “I panicked, man!  I’ll
send ’
em
away right now.”

“Don’t
bother.  Just get up here.”

“Fine, fine.”

Corey got on the
elevator and started up.

“SOMETHING’S
wrong,” Amber whispered nervously.

“Nothing to worry
about,” Bradley said blandly.

“He was supposed to
be waiting on the elevator.”

“Apparently he’s
waiting on one of the upper levels.  No big deal.”

“It still doesn’t
seem quite right,” muttered Amber.

“Relax,” said
Bradley.

“Where is he,
Dizzie?” they heard Corey’s voice asking.

“I lost him,”
Dizzie’s voice replied.  “There are only so many cameras...”

The door next to
the elevator opened—the door to the stairwell.  A hooded guy walked
out.  He had a two-way in his hand.  Two steps out of the door, he
froze.  Somewhere in the shadows under his hood, his eyes were locked on
Amber and Bradley.

Then he ran—back
up the stairs.

“Come on,”
Bradley yelled at Amber.  “And draw your weapon!  Corey, we saw
him.  He’s in the stairwell.”

“On my way down,”
Corey’s voice came in their earpieces.

“We’re headed
up,” said Bradley.

“I told you
something was wrong!” Amber yelled as they burst into the stairwell.

COREY
ran down the switch-back concrete stairs from level seven.  At the second
landing, a huge 6 was stenciled on the door.  He whipped down to level
five...level four...

He ran into
Bradley and Amber on the level three landing.

“He’s got to be
out here,” Corey yelled, leading the way out the door onto the third level of
the garage.

They saw the
hooded guy disappear beyond a concrete column past the second row of parking
spaces.

“I should have
brought the car up,” hissed Bradley.

“Looks like Jill
had the same idea,” said Amber.

JILL
had waited, as instructed, behind a building fifty yards from the garage. 
She was the safety net of the mission.

It didn’t take long
for her presence to be required.

She’d gunned into
the air along one side of the garage, seeing the hooded guy running across the
empty parking spaces of the third level.  She angled her bike over the
barrier at the edge of the garage and went after him.  Concrete columns
whipped by her on both sides.

She was closing
in.

He knew she was
closing in.  He got to the end of the level and heaved himself over the
edge...

He caught the
barrier at the rim of level two and swung himself back into the garage.

It was only a
temporary escape.  A moment later Jill had swooped down to level two,
right in front of the hooded guy.  She parked, leaped off her bike,
leveled her gun at him.

That’s when
things got interesting.

“ARE
you sure they went this way?” Amber asked breathlessly.

“She chased him
toward this corner,” said Corey, leading the way as the three of them ran.

They got to the
corner.  No one was in sight.

Then they heard
voices.

“They’re on the
level below us,” Bradley said.

“They’re on the
level below you,” Dizzie yelled at the same time.  “They’re outside the
security cameras’ view, but I saw them go by.”

Corey ran to the
barrier, leaned out, tried to look down to level two.

Wherever Jill and
the hooded guy were was out of sight from here.

“We’ve got to get
down there,” Corey ordered.

They didn’t go
back to the elevator or the stairs.  It was quicker to take the ramp cars
used to get between level two and level three.

On their way down
they heard the gunshot.

They’d already
been running fast; now they ran faster.

IN
her cubicle at HQ, Dizzie listened in on the mission.  The largest of her
monitors had an overhead map of the garage, with blinking lights where the
department vehicles and the agents were.  The neighboring screens showed
the security cameras’ shots of the garage.

She heard the
gunshot too.

She pulled the
microphone of her headset close to her mouth.  “Guys?  Is everything
all right?”

WHEN
they got there, the skybike was roaring away.  Jill wasn’t on it. 
Jill was alone in a heap on the cold cement floor.

Corey got to her
first.

“I’m all right,”
she breathed.

“Thank God,” he
whispered.

“Thank God!”
Dizzie’s voice sounded in their earpieces.

They helped sit
her up and took her helmet off.  She looked fine except that her hair was a
mess from being tucked into the helmet.  She forced a meager smile. 
“I guess he was a quicker draw than I was,” she said weakly.

“The bullet is
lodged in your armor,” said Amber, touching the place where the shoulder plate
of Jill’s uniform was sharply indented.

“Did it
penetrate?” Corey asked.

“Not sure,” said
Jill.  “I can’t feel much...”

Amber started
unbuckling Jill’s uniform top.

“Man,” moaned
Jill, “that’s the second skybike I’ve lost this month.”

“That’s the least
of our concerns right now,” said Corey.

“Yeah,” whined
Bradley, “this meeting was our only link to Love’s client.”

“Forget the
client, Bradley,” shot Amber.  “Jill’s hurt!”

“Dizzie,” Bradley
was asking into his mouthpiece, “are you tracking Jill’s skybike?”

“Heading west,”
said Dizzie.

Bradley stood to
move.

Corey grabbed his
arm.  “Leave it,” he said.

“I’ve got to get
the car and head after him,” countered Bradley.

“He’s not dumb
enough to stay on the bike for long,” said Corey.  “He knows we can track
him.”

“Then I’ve got to
catch him before he ditches the bike.”

“We’re using the
car to bring Jill back to HQ,” Corey said firmly.

Amber had the
uniform top off.  Jill’s sleeveless shirt exposed the wound.  The
armor had slowed the bullet, but it had still partially penetrated her
shoulder.  Jill gritted her teeth and moaned.

“We have a job to
do,” said Bradley, jerking his arm away from Corey.

“Some things are
more important than the job,” Corey said loudly, standing so his face was
inches from Bradley’s as he spoke.

“Bradley Park,”
Dizzie’s voice crackled angrily, “you get Jill on that car and you get her back
here ASAP, you hear me?  The client has already ditched the bike
anyway.  He abandoned it at the edge of the business park.”

“Now that he’s on
foot, we can catch him no problem,” said Bradley.

“He’s not on
foot,” said Corey.  “He just borrowed Jill’s bike to get back to his own
vehicle as quickly as possible.”

“Sherlock can
follow him on traffic cams if he stays on main roads—”

“He’s gone,
Bradley,” Corey said firmly.  “Let it go.”

Bradley didn’t
say anything else.  He also made no move to get the car.

Jill groaned in
pain again.

“I’ll get it
myself,” Amber said disgustedly.

“I’m not riding
back to HQ while he’s getting away,” said Bradley.

“No, you’re not,”
said Corey.  “You’re bringing Jill’s skybike back to HQ.”

Bradley
frowned.  “Fine.  You don’t want me around, drop me off at the bike
and let me ride home by myself.”

“We’re not
dropping you off.  It’s not on our way.  Take a hike and get it
yourself.”

“I don’t know where—”

“Dizzie can guide
you,” said Corey.  He gave him a long, hard look.  “Say, before you
head back to HQ, why don’t you look for the client?  Now that he’s on foot
you should be able to catch him no problem.”

Jill snickered in
the middle of another groan.

HER
first exposure to the department’s medical facilities should have been a
tour.  Unfortunately she was here as a patient first.  Dizzie
insisted on being in the examination room with her.  Jill tried to talk
her out of it, but she wouldn’t listen.  Jill had to admit she was glad
she wouldn’t.

A sour faced
balding fellow by the name of Dr. Gordon studied her shoulder through smudged
spectacles.  “Superficial wound,” he said with a frown.

Dizzie smiled at
her and squeezed her hand.  She seemed even more relieved than Jill was.

“I can treat it
against infection,” the doctor continued, “but I can’t make it heal any
faster.  No more missions for you for a while, Miss Branch.”

“I guess I can
live without getting shot at for a few days,” said Jill.

COREY
was in the waiting room between the medical facilities and HQ.  He put
down the magazine he hadn’t been reading, and stood quickly when Jill
reappeared.  “So?”

“So I get a
vacation already,” said Jill.

“She’s fine,”
Dizzie interpreted.  “Just has to stay home for a while.”

“Wow.  I
went on like ten missions before I got a vacation.  What did I do wrong?”

“I guess you were
too careful to dodge bullets,” Jill suggested.

He smiled
weakly.  “Guess so.”

“Back to your
room,” Dizzie said, taking Jill’s arm.

They walked
toward the dorms.  Dizzie was acting like Jill’s nurse or mother. 
Jill was telling Dizzie what she thought about her acting like her nurse or her
mother.  Corey just watched thoughtfully as they disappeared out the door.

Bradley Park
showed up in the waiting room a minute later.  “Got the skybike
back.  It’s a nice machine, let me tell you.”

“She’s fine,
thanks for asking,” said Corey.

Bradley just
frowned.  “What’s with you?  You look like something’s bugging you.”

“You are.”

Bradley
shrugged.  “That’s normal.  Something else—something that wasn’t
bugging you until recently.”

“Maybe,” said
Corey, still looking out the door.  He left without another comment.

19

IT
took a lot of reassurance before Dizzie left Jill’s side.

The first moment Jill
was alone in her room, she collapsed into her chair and put her head in her
hands.  She was shaking.  It wasn’t just because of the mission, the
chase, getting shot.  She was shaking for a lot more than that.

Should she tell
them?  Should she tell someone what really happened out there tonight?

Should she tell
someone
everything?

She took the box
out of her closet and dug the picture out.  Again she looked into her own
eleven-year-old eyes.

When she looked
up she was staring into the mirror above her dresser.

The girl she saw
there wasn’t the same girl in the picture.  The girl in the picture was
innocent and carefree, hadn’t done the things Jillian Branch had now done...

Her eyes drifted
around her room—the room the taxpayers of Anterra were providing for her. 
She was a government agent, now.  She was on the right side of the law.

Or so they said.

She’d tried to
believe it.  But after what had happened tonight, it was all coming back
to her...

She looked at the
picture again; in the mirror again; the picture; the mirror.

She didn’t belong
here.

There was just
one last thing to do.  They had to know.  The director had to know
what had really happened on the mission...what had really happened before she
ever joined the department.

She would write
it out; that might be easier than trying to say it out loud.  She dug in
her drawer until she’d found a pen and a pad of paper.

A certain pad of
paper...

Wait a second.

She opened the
pad.  The first page was still there:

Miss Branch,

The
office computer of Tanaka Brothers’ Gallery, on the Aurora Bridge Mall,
contains a list I should very much like to see.  It is a document entitled
HPCAMVEN.  Please copy the document in its entirety onto the subsequent
pages of this notepad...

This
notepad.

Hmm.

THE
floor of HQ was too busy to notice her appear and make her way down the dark
hall toward the room where Sherlock was housed.  Soon she was alone in
front of the bulletproof glass doors that guarded his extensive mechanized
brain.  She went to the kiosk beside the doors.  It was the only
console she knew of where she could be alone.

Alone besides the
company of a machine, that is.

“Sherlock?”

“
Yes, Jillian
Branch?
”

It wasn’t
unexpected, but it still gave her chills to hear the mechanical voice respond
to her.

“You recognize my
signature, don’t you?”

“
Of course,
Miss Branch
.”

“I’d like to
perform a test.”

“
May I inquire
as to the reason?
”

She’d thought
about this, and she was ready with an answer:  “I’m still skeptical about
your skills—no offense intended, of course.”

“
None taken,
Miss Branch.  I am, after all, an unemotional object
.”

“Right. 
Anyway, maybe it’s just because I’m new here.  I’m not sure.  I’d
just like to see another demonstration of your abilities.  The more
confident I am that you can do what they say you can do, the more secure I’ll
feel doing my job.”

“
That is
reasonable,
Miss Branch.  Please explain the nature of the test.
”

“I’d like you to
report when you detect my signature being written over the next thirty
seconds.”

“Gladly.”

She took a page
out of the console printer, as Holiday had done a week ago, and placed it on
the flat surface of the console.

Then she took out
Sketch’s notepad, careful to obscure it from the security cameras.  She
signed her name on the bottom of the page.

Sherlock said
nothing.

She signed her
name again.

Nothing.

She signed the
page from the console printer.

“
Your
signature was detected approximately three seconds ago
.”

The console
displayed her signature, as she had signed it on the printer paper.

She signed the
notepad again.

Sherlock said
nothing more.

She tucked the
notepad into her pocket.

“Thanks,
Sherlock.”

“
Of course,
Miss Branch.  How is your shoulder feeling?
”

“Fine,
thanks.  Gee, for an unemotional object you’re pretty thoughtful.”

“
I try. 
But I would be amiss if I did not tell you that this demonstration has been
overly simple.  If you’d like, I can suggest some other means by which I
might prove myself to you
.”

“Maybe later.”

“
Of course
.”

SHE
was back in her room, with Sketch’s notepad on the desk in front of her. 
The letter would have to be a little different than the one she’d originally
planned on writing.  For a while she didn’t write anything, just sat
thoughtfully.

She got up,
locked the door, got herself a drink of water, sat down again, and started
writing.

She finally went
to bed at about 2 a.m.

“I
don’t have to tell you how sorry I am for what happened,” said the director.

She’d caught him
alone in his office first thing in the morning.  He was kind enough to put
aside whatever he’d been working on and offer her the chair across from him.

“All in the line
of duty,” said Jill.  She leaned forward on his desk.

“You didn’t waste
any time taking a hit for the team.”

“It wasn’t my
plan, believe me.”

“Things don’t
always go according to plan in this business.”

Jill sat
back.  “Not always...but sometimes?”

Holiday nodded
slightly.  “Sometimes.”

“You trusted me
awfully quickly, didn’t you?”

“Oh, we may have
sent you on a mission right away.  But trust you?  I can’t say we did
that, entirely.”

“I see. 
I’ll have to prove myself.  Somehow.”

Holiday looked at
her intently.  “If I know you, you’ll find a way.”

“Working on it.”

The director put
his hand in his pocket, and stood.  “Come this way, if you have a moment.”

“Sure.”

He led the way to
the side of his office through a door she hadn’t known was there—it looked like
a part of the wall until it opened.  Beyond was a short hall, followed by
a sitting room of old fashioned tastes.  The room was perfectly tidy except
for an old, leather-bound book lying open on the sofa.  Beyond the sitting
room she saw another short hallway leading to other rooms.

“I rarely invite
female employees into my living quarters,” he said.  “But, then, Sherlock
is watching us very closely.”

“You live down
here too?” Jill asked.

“I find it easier
if I don’t have to commute to work.”

“Same as
us.  So how often do you get above the surface?”

“Not often. 
Sometimes I go weeks without going outside.”

“That can’t be
very healthy.”

“I won’t argue
with you.  I’ll be taking a very brief sabbatical as soon as possible.”

“Glad to hear
it.”

“You may be
surprised to learn that there was a time when I spent practically all my life
outdoors.  On the Home Planet, in fact.”

“I thought you
were an Anterran native.”

“I’m afraid not,
though I got here before you were born.”

Holiday led the
way behind the sofa, where several glass-encased frames hung on the wall. 
Inside the frames were pinned butterflies of every size, shape, and
color.  “This was my former passion.”

“It’s quite a
collection.”

“Thank you. 
It was years in the making.  I began with the local species in my native
England.  Soon, I was travelling around the world in search of others.”

“Why the
interest?”

Holiday smiled
and answered immediately:  “Metamorphosis.  You’re familiar with the
term?”

“I vaguely recall
it from school.”

“Nothing compares
to the drastic change these creatures undergo from larva to maturity.”  He
seemed to be looking at her a little too intently during this part.

She moved the
conversation along.  “Why did you come to MS9?”

“That’s a long
story, one with which I will not bore you at the moment.  Suffice it to
say I’m happier where I am now than I ever was running around the countryside
swinging a little net.”

“Still.  It
has to be hard, being a nature lover and now living on a completely artificial
world.”

Holiday
chuckled.  “I was never cut out to be much of a naturalist.”  He
gestured toward a particular butterfly in his collection.  It had vivid
blue wings edged and veined with black.  “This was always my
favorite.  It’s a Cobalt Viceroy.”

“It’s beautiful.”

“I always thought
so.  It’s also genetically engineered.  They don’t exist in
nature.  Scientists manufactured them in a lab by manipulating the DNA of
other species.”

“Oh.”

“It was a failed
experiment.  They died moments after emerging from the chrysalis. 
This is one the very few preserved specimen.  If I’m ever in a tight spot
I can auction it off and retire immediately.”

Jill looked
impressed.  “But you keep it.”

He shrugged. 
“I happen to like my job.  Besides, I wouldn’t want to part with the
specimen.  It reminds me that sometimes what people call a ‘failed
experiment’ is actually something incredibly beautiful.”

“You’re a
fascinating man, Director Holiday.”

“Tell that to
Home Planet Liaison Riley.”

“Maybe I
will.  Has he seen your collection?  That might help.”

Holiday shook his
head—almost sadly, Jill thought.  “I’m afraid Riley doesn’t share my
passion for metamorphosis.”

“I think maybe I
do,” Jill told him.

IT
wasn’t
hard to get permission to sign out and go above the surface for the day. 
With her injury she wasn’t supposed to work anyway.

From Pete’s Fish
Cannery Jill guided her skybike south of the lake.  The voters of Anterra
had ordered a sunny day with a few fake feathery clouds.

She cruised into
the nicer neighborhoods until she got to a huge shopping mall.  From the
entryway she zigzagged up the escalators to the fifth level, and dodged
shoppers across the polished floor between shops of chic electronics and the
latest clothing fashions.

She came to a row
of phone booths behind a jewelry shop.  The last booth had a sign taped to
it that said, “Out of order.”  She ignored the sign, picked up the
receiver, and dialed a number from memory.

A man’s distorted
voice answered in Korean.

“It’s me,” said
Jill.

“About time,” the
voice replied in English.

“It’s not easy to
get away, okay?  I basically had to get shot to come here, as you probably
heard.”

“Then I guess you
must have some big news for me.”

“You could say
that.  But I’m not telling you over the phone.”

“It’s a secure
phone.  Sherlock can’t hear us.”

“Still.”

The voice on the
other end paused.  “Fine.  We’ll meet in person.”

“Harvest Hotel on
the west rim, tonight, 11 p.m., suite 607.”

“You feel more
comfortable meeting at a hotel than speaking over a secure line?  Hotels
are full of eyes and ears.”

“Not this
one.  Believe me.”

“If you say
so.  You ought to at least give me a little information, being as you’ve
waited so long to contact me.”

“See you tonight,”
she said, and hung up.  She left the phone booth.

Someone in a high
collared coat and a cap pulled low over his face was on the phone in the booth
next to hers.  Jill didn’t bother looking his direction.