The Nexus Series: Books 1-3 (4 page)

Corey headed for
the elevator instead.

“I
don’t know about this, Corey.”

He was in Janice
Moeller’s office on the eighth floor of GoCom.  Her window faced east
across the lake.  In the distance Earth was darkening as night wore on.

“What is your
reason for refusal?” Corey asked Janice levelly.

“It doesn’t seem
like a good idea.”  Janice handled any interaction between Holiday’s
department and the rest of GoCom.  Mostly she tried to help Holiday’s
department go about its business undetected.

“You know the
protocol, Janice.  Field agents have the right to see prisoners without
the director’s consent.”

“That’s for
emergencies.”

“The word
‘emergency’ isn’t mentioned in the policy.”

“But it’s
implied.”

“Maybe.  How
do you know this isn’t an emergency?”

“You didn’t say
it was.”

“I don’t have to
say.  Your job is to set up the visitation for me, not ask me why.”

“My job,” Janice
said purposefully, “is to make sure you can do what you need to do without
anyone else knowing your department exists.”

“Which is why I
need you to clear me to visit the prisoner, so no one asks any questions.”

Janice frowned. 
“Okay,” she said, tapping at her keyboard.  “Which interrogation room?”

“It’s not an
interrogation.  I just want to visit her cell.”

“Fine. 
They’ll be expecting you.  But I’d still rather Director Holiday knew
about this.”

“He’ll know soon
enough,” Corey said on his way out of her office.

When he was out
of sight, he let out a tightly held breath.  He wasn’t used to doing
things this way, but it had felt good.

Or so he told
himself.

5

THIS
time when her cell wall slid open there was no uniformed cop.  There was a
young black man, Jill’s age or so.  He nodded in greeting.

She looked away.

“Hello, Jill.”

“What do you
want?”

“Just to
talk.  Really, that’s it.”

“Like your
boss?  I figured he’d be sending someone down.”

“He doesn’t know
I’m here.”

Now she looked at
him.  In her line of work she’d learned to tell when people were lying,
and this guy wasn’t lying.  “A little rogue operation, huh?”

“If you want to
call it that.”

“What exactly do
you want to talk about without your boss knowing?”

He pushed a
button on a remote and the cell door closed.  He sat at the other end of
her cot and faced her.  “I want to talk you into accepting his offer.”

Jill tried not to
smile.  This was it, the chance she’d been waiting for.

But she’d have to
play it just right.

She looked him in
the eye, making sure she came across as mildly interested but not too
eager.  “Okay.”

“I don’t think
you understand just what’s being offered to you.”

“You’re right, I
don’t.  No one seems to want to tell me about it.”

“It’s
classified.”

She gave him a
sideways look.  “Dangerous?” she asked.

He smiled. 
He was trying not to, but he couldn’t help it.  “Sometimes.”

Now she had him
going.  “So...how do you plan on talking me into joining up if you can’t
tell me what I’ll be doing?”

“By telling you
that it changed my life.  I was an errander myself for a while.  I
was going nowhere.  Now I’m doing something with myself.  Something
worth doing.”

If you did
something with your life that you would do no matter what, even if it meant
giving up all the money and all the comfort and all the convenience in the
world...?

Jill pushed the
thought aside. 
Find a way out of here
, her instincts yelled at
her.  She had to focus.  “Just because it worked that way for you—”

“Not just for
me.  Other people too.  There are a lot of people like us in this
city, Jill.  This is the best chance we’ve got.”

She let her gaze
drop to the cell floor.  She paused like she was thinking it over. 
“Maybe you’re right.  The way you put it...well, it sounds a little better
than when you’re boss talked about it.”

“He rubs some
people the wrong way.  That’s all.”

“To be totally
honest, I was actually almost convinced even before you came.  But I’m
still not ready to take the plunge, you know?  Joining secret agencies who
can’t tell you about what they’re up too...”

“Sure, I
understand.”  He stood from the cot.  “Well, I’ll get out of your
hair for now.  See you tomorrow.”

“You’re coming
back here?”

“To do some more
convincing.  And the next day and the next day and the next day—as long as
it takes to get you to come around.”

She smiled shyly
and looked away.  “Okay.  Tomorrow, then.”

“Tomorrow.” 
The wall grinded to a close behind him.

This was going
like clockwork.

MR.
Love’s place of business was actually his residence—three cramped rooms in the
back of a battered building nestled among a lot of other battered buildings a
mile from downtown.  His place gave a new definition to the term
“cluttered.”  True, he was a bachelor.  But most bachelors usually
washed their dishes once in a blue moon.  Mr. Love’s method was to buy new
dishes, and leave the old ones moldering in stacks in and around the
sink.  Apparently he had a similar method when it came to laundry.

But his current
client didn’t mind the mess, or at least didn’t say so.  His current
client had other things on his mind.  He was fidgety man, and skinny,
especially compared to Mr. Love.  He was a collector.  Most of Mr.
Love’s clients were.  Mr. Love told him he had the addition to his
collection he’d been looking for.  Now it was in a plastic shopping bag in
the fidgety man’s hand.  In his other hand was a wad of cash, which was in
Mr. Love’s hand a second later.  Mr. Love counted it twice and said goodbye.

The fidgety man
went out the door, down the rusty metal stairs to the alley, and into his
car.  He drove away in a hurry.  His driving was a little fidgety
too.

Mr. Love plopped
onto the couch.  There was just enough room for him between piles of old
magazines.  He put his feet up on a stack of pizza boxes and turned the
volume back up on his TV.  He was missing bits and pieces of his favorite
show tonight.  No big deal, though.  Business was booming.  He’d
had three clients in the last twenty minutes, and he was expecting at least one
more.  Soon he’d have enough saved up to get out of this dump, and move
into a much bigger, more expensive dump.

Another knock
came at the door.  He turned down the volume again and got up to answer.

There was another
knock while he was on his way.

“Be patient, will
ya
?  I’m—!”

The moment he
unlocked the door it burst in on him.  Two figures in black leapt into his
apartment.  They had guns.  They had black masks with reflective
eyes. 

Cops?

One had a silver
skull enameled on the front of his mask.  The other had the red and blue
taegeuk
and four trigrams of the Korean flag.

“On the
ground!  Now!”

The voice wasn’t
human.  It was electronic and distorted.  Mr. Love stood paralyzed.

They raised their
guns.  “You heard!  Get down!”

Mr. Love got
down.  His plan was to kneel, but he ended up doing more of a
tripping-and-falling maneuver.  He was panting like he’d just run up a
long staircase.

“Where are they?”
the skull mask demanded.

“
Wh
-what?” Mr. Love stuttered.

“You know
what.  Now where are they?”

Mr. Love’s lips
flapped soundlessly, and he waved a shaking hand toward the bedroom.

The one with the
skull mask kept a gun on Mr. Love.  The other one investigated the
bedroom.  He came back with a small, thin black box.  “Must be
these.  He’s got dozens of them on a shelf in there.”

“Hang onto that
one,” said the skull mask.  “We’ll show the boss, come back for the rest
later.  And you—get up!”

Mr. Love got
up.  Slowly.  There was still a gun in his face.

Behind the skull
mask, Corey Stone said into his microphone:  “We got him, Diz.  We’re
coming in.”

“You guys are
good,” Dizzie’s voice came through his earpiece.

Corey reached
back behind his helmet.

“Whoa, what are
you doing?” Bradley Park demanded from behind the other mask.

“I want him to
know who caught him.”

“No, Corey!”

The skull mask
came off.  The voice sounded natural now.  “Remember me?”

Mr. Love’s eyes
narrowed with angry recognition.  “You set me up, eh, Fredericks?  Or
whatever your name is.”  He spat.  “What’s this town coming to? 
Can’t even trust an errander these days.  What you
gonna
do, sell all my videos?”

“Actually we’re
going to arrest you.”

Mr. Love’s frown
deepened.  “You a cop now?”

“Something like
that.”

Mr. Love put his
hands on his hips.  “What are the charges?”

“Acquiring of
illegal materials.  Subsequent vending of said materials.  For
starters.”

“Prove it!”

“We intend
to.  Meanwhile come with us.  I think you’re going to like your new
living arrangements.”

Bradley looked
around the apartment through his mask’s reflective eyes.  “Yeah; I think
I’d rather go to jail than live here.”

It was tough
getting Mr. Love down the metal stairs to the alley; even tougher getting his
bulk into the back seat of the car.  But they managed.

“A
video tape,” said Director Holiday, holding up the little black box for
inspection.  “Or a videocassette, to be more exact.”

They were at a
table in a small room just off the HQ balcony.

Bradley gave the
director a puzzled look.  “What does it...do?”

Corey had to
chuckle.  Bradley was typically so arrogant—always bragging about his pure
Korean pedigree and acting like he knew more than everyone else.  It was
nice to see the kid totally confused.  “You’ve seen old film reels? 
It’s like those, but a lot smaller.”

“Back near the
end of the twentieth century, this was just about the only way average people
could personally store and display video,” said Holiday.  “The magnetic
tape inside winds around these two spindles, see?  As it rolls from one
side to the other the tape sends a video and audio signal to a
television.  We’ll need a VCR—a videocassette recorder.  It’s the
device that gets the information off the tape and sends it to the
television.  Hello, Dino!”

A funny little
man in jeans and a T-shirt appeared in the doorway at the back of the
room.  Lights and consoles of countless old gadgets blinked in the room
behind him.  “What’s up, Mr. H?”

Holiday held up
the little black box.

Dino
whistled.  “Videocassette!  I’ve heard of them; read all about
them.  Never seen one, though.”  He held out his hand.  “Can
I...?”  He took the video tape from Holiday and looked at it.  He
looked like an art collector holding a Rembrandt.  “What’s on it?”

“We’re reasonably
certain it contains material banned by the CMVLA,” said Holiday. 
“Someone’s been renting and selling them, I’m afraid.  I assume you have a
VCR in there?”

Dino
laughed.  “Not at the moment, boss.  Had one up until a few months
ago.  All it did was collect dust.  Sent it back to Earth, some
museum called the Smith Sons, or something.  Got quite a few credits for
it.”

Holiday gave Dino
a cold, gray stare.

“Hey,” said Dino,
waving the tape, “these things were only widely used for like thirty, forty
years, tops.  Quick fad, before the digital age set in.  Can’t
believe you got hold of one.  This would be worth quite a few credits
too.”

“Don’t even think
about it.”

“Don’t worry, Mr.
H, I’m not going to sell it.  I’m just saying they’re rare, that’s
all.  VCRs, even rarer.  I got quite a few credits for mine. 
Did I tell you?”

“You did,” muttered
Bradley.

“So can we borrow
it back from the Smith Sons?” asked Corey.

Dino shook his
head.  “Too much time and paperwork.  Besides, we don’t need
to.  If your man is selling and renting these things, his clients have to
have ways to play them.”

“Love probably
has a VCR himself,” said Holiday.  “When you retrieve the rest of the
videocassettes, look for one at his place.”

“Should be about
this big,” said Dino holding his hands about eighteen inches apart. 
“It’ll be black or gray, with a console in front.  There’ll be an opening
just right for cassettes like these to slide inside.”

After Corey left,
Bradley stayed behind with Holiday.  “Sir, can I have a word?”

“I was going to
ask you the same thing,” said the director.  “How did things go tonight?”

“Fine, I guess.”

“So I won’t be
hearing about the various creative ways you violated protocol?”

“No, sir. 
I’m not the one who violated protocol this time.”

Holiday just
grunted faintly and waited for Bradley to go on.

“I know I’m the
last one that should be blowing the whistle on anyone else, sir.”

“True.  Now
that we got that out of the way, continue.”

“Just as we were
about to arrest Mr. Love, Corey...”

“Yes?”

“He took his mask
off.”

“Did he,
now?”  Holiday seemed neither shocked nor angry.  He didn’t seem
happy either.

“I know it’s not
a big deal.”

“In fact, it’s a
very big deal.  Revealing the identity of anyone in our department while
on the job could compromise our entire endeavor.”

“I guess Corey
figured we had Love, and he wouldn’t be getting away, so it would be
okay.  He said he wanted Love to remember who caught him.”

“You can never
tell for certain whether or not a suspect will get away.  Suppose Mr. Love
doesn’t get convicted, for instance?  Even if he does, suppose he has ways
of communicating while he’s serving his sentence?  I don’t have to tell
you that bootlegged films are hardly all that’s at stake in this instance,
Bradley.  Mr. Love has some very dangerous contacts—contacts we intend to
track down.  That’s the whole point of the mission.  Corey could have
a rather large target on his back.”

Bradley shifted
his feet.  “Look, sir, I feel bad saying anything about this.  I’m
the one who’s been on suspension the last month.  I just thought you
should know.”

“And now I
do.”  Holiday put his hands behind his back and stepped to the
doorway.  He saw Corey rounding the balcony toward the door to the
elevator lobby and the dorms.

“Sir?” said
Bradley, stepping next to him.  “Don’t be too hard on him.  He’s a
good point man.”

“He is indeed. 
And it’s good to hear you say so at last.”