The Nexus Series: Books 1-3 (18 page)

22

WHEN
he got back to HQ, Holiday headed straight to Dino’s lab.  “I’m not
interrupting anything?”

“Not really,”
said the funny little man.  “Just checking out these VCRs we got from
Love’s clients.  I’m still trying to get them to work so we can use them
at the trial.  What can I do for you, Mr. H?”

“I need your help
on a matter, if it won’t inconvenience you.”

“Not at all.”

“This way,
please.”

BETWEEN
songs on his phonograph, the boss heard a noise.  It sounded like it was
coming from out in the arcade.  But the arcade had been closed since
midnight. 

He grabbed his
gun and opened his office door a crack.

All game areas
and consoles had been switched off.  The arcade was dark except for
streetlights glowing through the painted windows.

The boss heard
another sound.  He opened the door a little more, and leaned out for a
better peek with his one good eye.

He saw a glow
coming from up a ramp in one corner.  He’d forgotten to turn one of the
games off.

...Or someone had
turned it back on.

“UM,
no offense, Mr. H, but I don’t have to go.  Even if I did, I’d rather go
alone.”

Holiday didn’t
reply.  He led Dino into the men’s restroom at the back of HQ, then into
the janitor’s closet at the back of the men’s restroom.

THE
boss hesitated.  The custodians weren’t scheduled to be here for another
four hours...though when they got here they’d be plenty busy; candy wrappers,
popcorn bits, cigarette butts, even coins littered the carpet.

So who turned the
game on?

The boss leveled
his gun and moved cautiously toward the glow.

As he got closer
he saw it was one of his oldest consoles, an invaluable antique.  It
glowed and chimed an electronic tune while blocky letters asked him or anyone
else around to insert coin(s) to play.

ON
a shelf in the janitor’s closet in the restroom was a telephone.  A really
old telephone.  It had a rotary dial on its bulky base, and a hefty
receiver perched on top.

“You know what
this is, I presume?” Holiday asked.

Dino scratched
his head.  “What it is, yeah.  What it’s doing here, no.”

“It’s here so
someone can make calls,” said Holiday.  “Calls that Sherlock doesn’t know
about.”

Dino
chuckled.  “If someone wanted to make a call from this thing, it would
have to be hooked up to—”

Holiday turned
the bulky phone around, and showed Dino the phone wire plugged into the back.

Dino
whistled.  “Still,” he said, “unless there’s a switchboard or something at
the other end, and other old phones routed into the switchboard...”

“This wire has
been fed through the wall,” said Holiday.  “I haven’t yet searched to find
where it leads.”

“So is that why
you need my expertise?  I do know a little about these things.”

“I never said I
needed your expertise.”

“You said you
needed—”

“Your help.”

Dino’s eyes
shifted uncertainly.  “What sort of help?”

“A confession,
ideally,” said Holiday.

THE
boss
didn’t approach the game console.  Someone was baiting him.  He knew
it.  And he wasn’t taking the bait.

Sure enough, he
heard a gunshot.  A bullet—or, if he wanted to be optimistic, a
stunner—whizzed by him and cracked into the screen of another priceless game
console.

The boss ducked
around the snack counter to an exit.  He was in a passage along the side
of the building.  He ran on old patterned carpet beneath dimmed lights
glowing from along the ceiling.

Another gunshot
behind him.

He ducked and
whirled, firing his own shot.

Cops—at least they
were dressed something like cops.  He thought he saw three of them. 
One had the Korean
taegeuk
and trigrams on his
mask.  They leaped out of the hall and back into the arcade as the boss
fired again.

He took his
opportunity.  He ran the remaining distance up the passage and through a
door to the back stairway of the building.

There were only
three floors.  He skipped the second, got to the third.

The cops were
still close behind.

“YOU
think I put this phone here?”

“I know you put
this phone here,” said Holiday.  “How else were you going to call your
contact—the man who calls himself Sketch?”

Dino was sweating
majorly now.  “What are you talking about?”

“I’m talking
about the fact that you’re spying on our department for a criminal ring. 
You have access to Sherlock—which means the man who calls himself Sketch now
has access to Sherlock through you.”

Dino
sputtered.  “I don’t know what you mean.”

“Maybe this will
trigger your memory.”  Holiday reached behind a caddy of cleaning supplies
on another shelf, and pulled out an old audiocassette recorder.

“Hey, that
belongs in my lab,” said Dino.

“We needed it,”
said Holiday with a shrug.  “How else were we going to eavesdrop on your
phone conversations without Sherlock knowing about it?”

Dino swallowed.

“Desiree was kind
enough to rig this for me yesterday,” Holiday went on.  “It can be
remotely switched on and off.  Of course, a lot of what we’ve recorded
over the last twenty-four hours is useless.  Apparently sometimes when you
went to the men’s room, you were just...going to the men’s room.”

THE
third floor hallway above the arcade was lined with office suites.  The
only light was from the exit signs at either end of the hall.

The boss heard
the cops coming up the stairs behind him.

He ran for the
other end of the hall.  Maybe he could double back down the other
stairwell, and—

He didn’t see the
kick until he was feeling it.  He rebounded from the blow, lifted his gun.

Another kick sent
his weapon flying out of his hand.

He was unarmed
and staring into a mask enameled with a flaming red emblem.

He took two more
blows in two more seconds before he decided to retreat.  The other two
cops, or whoever they were, had now appeared in the hall.  The boss
started trying the doors to the office suites.  All were locked, of
course.

...Except one.

The boss dashed
into the reception area for First Anterran Family Insurance, Korean Town
branch, and locked the door behind him.  Then he lunged into the largest
office beyond the reception area.

They were
pounding on the door to the suite.

The boss looked
at the large window behind the insurance rep’s desk.  Down below was a
grassy courtyard complete with trees and a pond.  Beyond that were the
Korean neighborhoods he’d disappear into as soon as he got through the
window—assuming the three-story fall didn’t kill or cripple him.  But he
had no other choice.

Then a light
flooded over him from outside the window.

The light got
closer.

Closer.

Gunshots sounded
from outside the window.  The glass pane was suddenly webbed with cracks.

The light got
even closer.

The boss dove for
cover as a skybike soared into the office.  He was bathed in the
headlight, showered with shards of what had been the window a second ago.

DINO
looked at the floor of the closet.  “So, you know...everything,” he
muttered.  It wasn’t a question.

“Everything,”
said Holiday.

The funny little
man heaved a funny little sigh.  “How?”

“Jillian
Branch.”  The director handed Dino an envelope—the envelope Jill had first
stealthily handed him in his office recently.

THE
boss scooted back into the corner, looking in vain for something to grab and
use as a weapon.

Someone slid off
the bike that had just creatively arrived in the office.  Now that the
headlight wasn’t in his eyes the boss saw the vivid blue butterfly insignia on
the visor.

“Should I tell
you the charges, Sketch?” a mechanically distorted voice asked the boss. 
“Or can we just assume you already know what they are?”

DINO
started reading the letter:

Dear Director,

I’m
writing to you on very illegal, very non-digital paper.  I received this
paper from a client before I joined the department.  The fact is, I can’t
tell you what I’m about to tell you in any way that Sherlock might overhear. 
I’m afraid Sherlock has been compromised...

He stopped
reading.  “Just give me the Reader’s Digest version, will you?”

“Jill already
knew there was a traitor in our department.  She’d known that since the
day she got here; Sketch’s stooge had told her they already had an inside
source.  It didn’t take her long to figure out it was you.  Who else
would have the resources and knowhow to share department secrets in ways that
couldn’t be traced by Sherlock?”

Dino
half-smiled.  “And to think I was about to get out of that gig.  I
suppose they suspected, and that’s why they needed another insider.  I
wasn’t willing to help them quite as much as they wanted.  They were
planning to take down the whole department, you know.”

“Do you think they
would have let you live if you’d jumped ship?”

“They would have
had to.  I’m safe down here.”

“Maybe,” Holiday
said inconclusively.

Dino
frowned.  “Believe me, Mr. H, I’d help you catch the guy myself at this
point.  But he’s cut off communication with me.”

“It makes little
difference.  Any moment now he will be arriving here in the hands of our
agents.”

Dino raised his
eyebrows.

“Jill had more to
say in this letter than the fact that you were a traitor,” said Holiday. 
“She had a plan to prove it—and catch the one you’d been working for while we
were at it.”  Holiday pressed play on the audiocassette player.

Dino heard his
voice on the tape:  “...Sure, I can set up a closed-circuit camera...Yes,
just name the place...Ace of Hearts Pawn Shop, 11 p.m. tonight.  You got
it.  It’ll be set by ten at the latest.”

Dino reached over
and stopped the cassette player himself.  “How does that help you?
 Sherlock can’t pick up a closed-circuit camera signal.”

“Unless someone
knows the camera is going to be used for such a purpose,” said Holiday, “and
rigs the camera to send a feed to Sherlock.”

“Not to mention
trace the original feed to see who’s receiving it,” Dino guessed.

Holiday
smiled.  “Desiree’s help again.  When you’re going to use your lab
equipment for treachery, you really shouldn’t leave it lying around for us to
tamper with first.”

“Dizzie’s good at
this stuff, huh?  Maybe she should take my place.”

“Someone’s going
to have to, being as you’ll be in jail.”  Holiday picked up the old
phone’s receiver and touched a mechanism attached to the mouthpiece. 
“Don’t tell me you made yourself sound like a woman?”

Dino looked more
sheepish than he had at any point yet in this conversation.  “Hey, so long
as it wasn’t my voice being heard on the other end of the line, who cares?”

“I’d ask why you
did it, Dino, but I already know it was money.”

“Lots of it.”

“And you’ll be
doing lots of time for it.  Of course, a little cooperation might go a
long way in that regard.”

“It sounds like
you already know everything.  What more do you want from me?”

Holiday pointed
to the phone.  “Tell me more about this.”

THE
floor of HQ became a standing ovation as the team of four agents entered from
the garage.  A handcuffed and blindfolded prisoner stood between them.

“Here you are,” Jill
whispered from behind her mask, her distorted voice buzzing softly in the
boss’s ear.  “You’ve wanted to know all about this place for a
while.  Now you’re here in person.  Welcome.”

“A pleasure,” he
muttered.  “At least take off this blindfold so I can enjoy it.

“I didn’t think
you’d mind it so much,” said Corey’s mask.  “You’re always half
blindfolded anyway.”

The prisoner
found that humorous enough to sneer.  Just sneer.

HOLIDAY
sat in his office again.  He didn’t see his field team arrive with the
prisoner in custody.  He didn’t hear the applause at their arrival.

His attention was
on the end of Jill’s letter.  He’d read it several times, and now he was
reading it again.  He would probably read it again after that.

He gave a long
sigh.

23

HALF
an hour later they were meeting in the conference room off the garage.

“Thanks to the
diligence of each one of you,” said Holiday, “we’ve apprehended a very crooked
ringleader.  Capturing him was a tremendous step forward for this
department.  As much as we owe Jillian a great debt of thanks for
concocting the plan of Sketch’s apprehension, we owe perhaps even more
gratitude to Corey, Bradley, and Amber, who were not let in on the plan until
the very last moment.  In fact, Corey’s devotion to keeping our department
safe nearly foiled Jill’s plan.”

“You’re welcome,”
said Corey with a half-smile.

Amber looked
puzzled.  “You said Corey, Bradley, and me...”  She shot a look
toward Dizzie.

Dizzie smiled
sheepishly.  “I wanted to tell you!” she burst.  “I wanted to
soooo
bad, you have no idea!”

“I think we have
some idea,” Bradley muttered.

“Director Holiday
threatened to kill me and cut up my dead body into little pieces if I told.”

That got the
director a set of looks.  He just shook his head with a roll of his eyes.

“Well, okay, not
exactly,” admitted Dizzie.  “But, you know, something along those lines.”

Holiday cleared
his throat and continued:  “From the moment Jillian slipped me the letter
written on Sketch’s notepaper, I decided as few people as possible must know
about the plan.  We chose to include Desiree because, of course, she would
be running com on the mission.  Also, her technical skills were invaluable
in obtaining proof of Dino’s treachery.  Her ability to keep the matter to
herself for nearly twenty-four hours was very admirable—perhaps nothing short
of miraculous.”

Dizzie smiled
widely.

“And speaking of
Dino,” Holiday continued, “he has agreed to cooperate with the department by
telling us everything he knows about Sketch’s ring.  The telephone Dino
was using is part of a large telecommunications network created by the Anterran
criminal underground to avoid Sherlock’s listening ears.  An extensive
investigation of this network is in order.”

“Let me guess,”
said Corey, “our team will be in charge of that investigation?”

“Perhaps,” said
Holiday.  “That decision is for another time.  For now, enjoy a
couple of days off to celebrate your success.”

That brought a
few whoops and high fives—from everyone but Jill, that is.  When Holiday
dismissed them, Jill slipped out quietly before anyone else.

...A fact that
wasn’t lost on Corey.

“WELL,
it looks like you were right after all,” said Home Planet Liaison Riley. 
He didn’t actually seem that unhappy.  Holiday thought Riley would cut off
one of his own fingers before willingly admitting that he’d been wrong and
Holiday had been right.

Ironically,
Holiday was the unhappy one.  He hardly seemed to be listening. 
“Looks like,” he said.  He wasn’t looking at Riley.  He was looking
at a letter lying on his desk.

“Something
wrong?” asked Riley.  “I thought you’d be gloating the minute I walked
in.”

As if finally
realizing he had a visitor in his office, Holiday folded the letter, sat back
in his chair, and said:  “We don’t all gloat every time we’re right about
something, Riley.  Some of us are more used to it than others.”

Riley ignored the
jab.  “Jillian Branch just helped nab one of the biggest criminal ring
leaders in Anterra.  She’s proven herself.  Isn’t that what you
wanted?”

Holiday smiled
mirthlessly.  “I guess we both got something we wanted tonight.  I
wanted Jill to prove herself.  You wanted her out of the department.”

Riley
blinked.  “What are you saying?”

“I’m saying she’s
resigned,” said Holiday.  He stood as if to say goodbye.  The
conversation was obviously over.

Riley had a
puzzled look on his tight facial features as he left the office.

Outside the back
entrance to the office, Corey Stone finally pulled his ear away from the
cracked-open door.  “No, Jill...” he whispered.

JILL
took a minute to look around her room.  It had felt like home the moment
she stepped into it.  It still felt like home.

Home was the
hardest place to leave.

She took in a
deep breath, released it slowly, and walked out.

It was two in the
morning.  The dorms were silent.  So was the lounge.  So was the
hallway.

Not the elevator
lobby.

Corey Stone sat
in a chair next to the elevator call button.  “Where do you think you’re
going?”

Jill kept her
face expressionless.  “What difference does it make to you?”

Corey stood and
leaned against the wall...in front of the call button.  “Don’t do it,
Jill.”

She cleared her
throat.  “Look, it’s not what you think.”

“You think I
still think you’re a traitor?  I don’t.  Believe me, I know what
you’re about to do, and I’m warning you: don’t.”

She gave him an
accusing look.  “You’ve been talking to the director, haven’t you?”

Corey didn’t
answer.  He just stood there with his arms crossed.

Jill
sighed.  “Remember what I told you when I first came back here?” she said
quietly.  “The minute I stepped out of line again...”

“You’d be the
first one to bring yourself back to jail.  Yeah, I remember.  Do you
remember what else you told me that day?  You said that if we all went
behind bars if we deserved it, I should be in the cell next to yours.”

“Then come on
down and turn yourself in with me.”

He shook his
head.  “I can’t let you do this.  Stay here.  There’s more work
to do, Jill.”

She wasn’t
listening to him.  Her eyes drifted.  “You always tell yourself
you’re not hurting anyone,” she said softly.  Corey was hearing her, but
she wasn’t exactly talking to him.  Or to anyone.  “You always tell
yourself what you’re doing is not really that bad.  But in the end, you
can’t escape the fact that you’re part of something—”  She searched for
the right word.  “Something evil.  Small part or big part, it doesn’t
matter.”  Her eyes still looked beyond Corey, beyond the room, beyond the
present.

She thought of a
fifteen-year-old boy with red hair and desperate eyes...

As if finally
remembering where she was, her eyes looked back into Corey’s.   “I’m
turning myself in, Corey.  I don’t belong here.  It’s time I paid for
everything I did in the past.  It’s the only logical thing to do.”

Corey met her
gaze.  “There’s more to this place than that kind of logic.”

She didn’t know
what to say to that.

Corey stepped
toward her.  “We need you, Jill.  The department needs you.”

“I came here as a
traitor.”

He scoffed. 
“If you were really a traitor to our department, you wouldn’t have saved it.”

“I came here as a
spy for Sketch,” she said.  “It was an errand.”

“You were already
planning on joining the department, even before Sketch got to you, weren’t
you?”

Jill hesitated. 
“You want the honest truth?  When I first came back to the department, I
didn’t know why I was here.  Part of me thought I’d just end up selling
department secrets to Sketch.”

“But another part
of you?” Corey prompted.

She swallowed and
looked at the floor.  “Another part of me thought I could really do
it.  I could really join the department and be one of the good guys. 
I could really have a reason to get up in the morning, do something meaningful
with my life.”  Were her eyes getting a little misty?  She would
not
let herself cry in front of Corey Stone!

“I think I know
why you came back,” said Corey.  “You came back because you belong
here.  Maybe you couldn’t admit it to yourself at the time, but you knew
it deep down.  And you know something?  I knew it too, even though I
didn’t want to admit it either.”

When she dried
her eyes, she saw she was standing on the department emblem on the lobby floor.

Did
she
belong here?

Corey stood
squarely between her and the elevator door.  “I’m not letting you leave,
Jill.  This is the place for you.”

She
sniffled.  “You can’t stand there forever.”

He looked fixedly
at her several long seconds.  Then he sighed and dropped his hands to his
sides.  “You’re right,” he admitted.  He stepped out of the way.

She saw the elevator
in front of her, now.  She stared at it.  But somehow she couldn’t
move toward it.

“Just know,” said
Corey, “that if you go you’ll be leaving a huge hole around here.  I don’t
know how we’ll replace you.”

He started back
for the dorms.

She was still
looking at the elevator.  Still not moving.  “Corey?” she called.

He paused before
the hallway.  “Yeah?”

She’d wanted to
ask him since it had happened.  “Why did you punch Bradley?”

At first the
question caught him off guard.  In a moment, though, he chuckled with
satisfaction at the memory.  “He called you a half-blood.”

“I
am
a
half-blood.”

“He meant it as
an insult.”

“You thought I’d
just betrayed the department to a thug.  Didn’t I deserve any insult I
got?”

Corey pondered
his answer for a minute.  “He was acting like he deserved to be part of
our team more than you did.”

“And you don’t
think so?”

Corey shook his
head.  “None of us deserves to be here, Jill.  Not a single one of
us.  I think I’m finally starting to figure that out.”

And then he disappeared
down the hall, and Jill was alone with the elevator doors.

She thought about
his words a long time.

They were still
ringing in her head when she fell asleep back in her room an hour later.

SHE
woke up in time to stumble over to the
caf
for breakfast
before it closed.  She made it about a step and a half through the door
before Dizzie assaulted her with a hug.  “How’s your shoulder?  So
much for not going on another mission for a while, huh?”

Amber was right
behind her.  Jill tried not to stare; she hadn’t even done her hair this
morning.

Then Corey
arrived, looking like he’d meant to arrive much sooner.  The minute he
stepped through the
caf
doors his tired eyes darted
nervously around until he found Jill.

She smiled at
him.

Every fiber of
his being seemed to go from tense to relaxed as he smiled back.  He took a
step toward the food line, paused, turned around and went back toward the
dorms.

Jill laughed to
herself.  He looked like he hadn’t so much as closed his eyes last night.

SEVERAL
interesting mailings went out from GoCom that morning.

One was addressed
to Matt at the
Northshore
Garage.  “Thanks for
the Translation,” it said.  Enclosed was a check for six hundred and fifty
credits.

Another was
addressed to Fat Frank.  It had a note with a single word: 
“Sorry.”  It included a sizable anonymous check and a coupon for Mike’s
Auto Body and Glass Repair.

A third was
addressed to the cathedral downtown, containing a note with the same single
word:  “Sorry.”  This one included an anonymous check for at least
the amount required to replace a stained glass window.

None of the
letters was signed.

DIZZIE
pounded on Jill’s room door and burst in without waiting for a response. 
Mandy and Amber were in her wake.

“We’re
celebrating last night’s victory by going out to lunch,” she beamed.

“Cool,” said
Jill.  She tried not to look like they woke her up, like she’d just been
lying in bed relaxing.  “Where at?”

“Tail of the
Dragon!”

“Dizzie’s
favorite Chinese buffet,” Mandy explained.

“Everyone’s
favorite Chinese buffet.”

“Whatever she
tells you,” Mandy whispered as though Dizzie couldn’t hear, “don’t try the
sesame chicken.”

“Try the sesame
chicken!” said Dizzie, elbowing Mandy.

“We’re meeting in
the garage at noon to head there, if you want to join us,” said Amber.

“Actually, can I
meet you there?” said Jill.  “I was hoping to get out and spend a little
time alone this morning.”

Dizzie had barely
opened her mouth before Mandy put a hand over it.  “That’s great, Jill,”
she said.  “See you then.  Come on, Dizzie.”

Dizzie sputtered
as Mandy tugged her into the hall.  Amber exchanged amused looks with Jill
before stepping out after them and closing the door.

By midmorning
Jill was on her skybike heading south on Route 6 away from downtown.  The
hazy dome of the Home Planet loomed distantly to her left.

She dropped to
street level as she got off the highway and made her way to an abandoned
neighborhood.  She parked in a particular alley, stood at its mouth, and
looked across the street.

...At a certain
third-story window.  Just for old time’s sake.

It was lifetime
ago—almost literally—since she’d been here in the dark and the rain. 
That’s when it had all started. 
Watch for the light
, Director
Holiday had told her on the phone.

And she had
watched.