Generation of Liars (19 page)

“The blonde?” Rabbit asked.

“Yeah, the psycho one from
Brussels, she’s here somehow. And to make it worse, I just got interrogated by
a pair of shoulder pads on legs.”

“We can’t let her deter us. We need
to get this done right now.” He instructed me, “To get to the server room you
need to get back on the elevator you used this morning and shoot down to the
building’s sub-ground level.”

I hit the elevator button, and when
the doors parted, Xerxes O’Brien was standing inside, dressed in a blue
janitor’s smock and hefting a black plastic trash bag over his shoulder. “Going
down, little lady?” he asked.

“I knew I saw you in the parking
lot.”

“Motley wanted me and Moonboots on
backup in case anything goes wrong.”

“I’m on my way down to the server
room right now to take care of the Project Nine servers. It might be helpful if
you go back up to the finance department and keep an eye on the blond girl in
the tight blouse. Make sure she doesn’t come down here.” The elevator stopped
and the doors sprang open behind me. I stepped backwards out into the hallway.

“Are you sure you don’t want me to
accompany you to the server room and be a lookout?” Xerxes asked.

I tapped my ear and replied,
“Rabbit’s got me covered down here.”

“Good luck, Alice.”

The door snapped shut between us
and I surveyed my daunting surroundings.

I was standing in a small, boxed-in
corridor. In front of me was a heavy industrial door. Next to the door’s
fortified handle, a red pulsing flicker radiated from a small black box fixed
to the wall. I swiped my fake employee badge beneath the blinking red sensor
and the light switched to green. I set my hand on the door’s handle. Cake.

Or was it? Suddenly a deafening
alarm sounded. It streamed into the corridor from all angles. I pulled my hand
off the handle and backed away.

“Don’t worry,” Rabbit said in my
ear just then. “I hacked into the alarm circuits and tripped the fire alarm so
the entire building will have to evacuate. The building being empty will make
your job easier. To your left, there’s a janitor’s closet. Go hide inside until
the employees have all evacuated.”

I jangled the handle on the closet
door. “If you tripped the door to lock me inside so you can take off for Maui
and leave me behind, I will kill you.”

“Oh, Alice, just go inside and shut
up.”

I slithered inside and shut the
door. “Great, it’s completely dark in here.” The closet was silent enough that
I could hear the glossy click of my own eyelids.

“Don’t worry, you won’t be in there
long. According to the human resources documents I hacked last night while I
was adding your fake identity into the system, the results from the fire drill
conducted last spring reports the standard employee evacuation time for Cibix
offices as 3.7 minutes.

“Do you want to listen while I
count
Mississippis
?”

“No need, Alice. I will let you
know when time is up. I can see the herd of employees rounding down Avenue of
the Americas now. There’s one with gargantuan shoulder pads evacuating from the
finance corridor. Is that the one you were socializing with earlier?”

“That’s her.”

“Look at that, time’s up,” Rabbit
chimed.

I threw the door open. I re-swiped
my badge and the light turned green and I ran inside. The walls were stainless
steel, like the interior of pipes, and I saw a plaque for the server room that
was the first door off the hallway.

“If you made it into the server
room you should see four big servers lined up on the far end of the wall.”

“I see them.”

“Now, walk over to them, pull out
the acid from your briefcase, and pour carefully. After you’ve poured the acid,
you’re going to see a slight sizzle and some gray, dry smoke. That’s how you
know it’s working.”

I set the briefcase down on the
ground and flexed my eyes side to side, quickly scanning the corners of the
server room to ensure that I was alone. I stooped down beside the briefcase and
gingerly popped the locks and reached for the neck of the first flask.

At the exact moment my hand curled
the flask, a heavy forced ripped through the air and delivered a bone-crunching
slam to my face. I crashed to my knees, the side of my face smashing into the
cold, hard floor. My eyes fluttered as I felt my consciousness melt back into
the warmth of my eye sockets.

Chapter Thirteen: The Servers

W
HEN
I OPENED my eyes again I saw the cusped toe of a black high heel shoe an inch
away from my teeth. My eyes roved upwards to a pair of long, smooth legs, the
surface of them gleaming under a pair of sheer pantyhose. The shoe’s tip
knocked at my teeth, and I looked up, past the sea of blond tresses hanging
over the face of the woman who wore the shoe. My eyes met her devilish brown
eyes.

“Hello, again,” she said. “I’ve
missed you since Brussels.”

“I hate you,” I said.

“What’s that?” Her eyes were on the
briefcase.

“None of your business.” I reached
out to grab her ankles. She wobbled and leveled down to the floor onto her ass.

“You bitch,” she snapped, rolling
on her knees to reach for the briefcase. I bolstered onto my knees and pulled
her back by the shoulders. She threw her body back and gripped the hollows of
my arm pits and threw me across the floor. My body spun over the slippery
surface, and the side of my face smashed against the broad, jagged corner of a
server. The determined blond grabbed for the briefcase again and I dragged my
belly across the dusty floor towards her, grappling to pull her down by her
hair.

“Be careful with that!” I screamed.
“It’s dangerous stuff.”

She paused for a second, frozen in
an acrobatic contortion. “Is the dynamite stick in that briefcase?”

“Why would I use a jumbo briefcase
to carry a tiny thumb drive, you brainless brute?”

She swatted a nasty bitch-slap
across my cheek. Her eyes looked skyward, contemplating, and she asked, “If
it’s not the dynamite stick, then what is?”

“It’s acid, and if you don’t quit
horsing around, you’re gonna feel the peel.”

“Why do you have acid?” She stepped
back from the briefcase and gleaned it with caution. Her eyes trained on me and
she reached into the waistband of her skirt and pulled out the stun gun she had
zapped me with at the library in Brussels. “What are you planning on doing with
this acid?” She scuttled at me, stun gun pointed forward, and grabbed me by the
scruff of my hair. The Stink bug flew out of my ear and sputtered to the floor.

I clenched my eyes shut against the
ripping pangs. “To wreck Cibix’s plan to restore everyone social security
numbers. Obviously you already know about it or else you wouldn’t have shown up
here.”

“That’s what you’re doing here?” I
felt her ease her grip on the tendrils of my hair.

“Yeah, what else would I be doing?
Applying for a position in accounting?”

“I thought you had the dynamite
stick and you were going to hand it over to Cibix for some kind of payout, but
if you’re trying to mess with the government, I don’t care if you wreck the
servers.”

She jerked me lose and started to
walk away. I let my arms drop and propped myself up by the palms of my hands as
I caught my breath.

“But I do care,” a voice, husky and
overconfident, roared from the doorway. I turned my eyes to see Pressley
Connard. I should have known he was never lurking far behind. His strong
shoulders were blocking the exit. The blonde zipped by Pressley on her way out
the door. He could have stopped her, but kept his eyes trained on me as he let
her speed off.

“Why did you let her go?” I wailed.
“That’s the woman who murdered Jamie in Brussels.”

“I know. Don’t worry, I’ve already
been keeping an eye on her.”

“Alice?” I could hear Rabbit’s
voice generating from the Stink bug on the floor. “Are you still there? You
should have destroyed the servers by now and gotten back to the car. Alice, do
you hear me? Employees are about to start reentering the building.”

My foot eclipsed over the Stink bug
and I rubbed the sharp stylus of my heel into it until it disintegrated into
shards.

“What’s the matter?” Pressley
asked. “You don’t want your friend to hear us?”

I kicked away the metallic
splinters from under my heel and locked my eyes onto Pressley’s. “I have a
feeling the conversation we’re about to have is one I would like to keep
private
.”

“You’ve been thinking about me,
haven’t you, Alice?”

“Oh, wipe that arrogant smirk off
your face.”

“It was a good kiss in that book
vault in Brussels, wasn’t it?”

“Shut up. You and I need to have a
little talk.”

“About our relationship?”

“There is no relationship. You need
to stop showing up places and screwing up my life.”

“Alice, quit playing games, let me
take you to the embassy and we will get everything straightened out, and then I
can take you home. It will be like none of this ever happened.”

“Trust me, when I’m done with you,
you will be praying none of this ever happened.”

“Why is that?” he asked.

I let a devious glare cross over my
eyes. I dived to the floor and grabbed the briefcase. I gathered the flasks up
in my arms and took three big steps back so that my ass bumped against one of
the servers. “
These
are why,” I replied.

“What are you doing?”

“I’m smoking the servers.”

“Stop what you’re doing,” Pressley
shouted, tension broiling in his vocal cords. “On behalf of the United States
Government, I order you to drop those flasks.”

I jiggled one of the flasks out in
front of me so that the liquid inside sloshed around. “Stay put or I’ll splash
you. This is acid, so I hope the clothes you’re wearing aren’t anything you
mind spoiling.”

“Acid?”

“Yup.” I unscrewed the bottle caps
and began sloppily pouring the acid over the large, metallic machines. As soon
as the acid came into contact with the mechanics on the server, I could hear
the innards of the machines sizzling, and a swirl of dry, icy smoke plumed into
the air.

“You shouldn’t have done that,”
Pressley informed me, suppressing a cough into his shirt sleeve. “Now I have to
arrest you.”

I flung the empty flasks over my
shoulder, letting them clatter like coins, and strode towards Pressley. “Lunch
break is over. Back to the corporate grind.” My shoulders breezed by him, but
Pressley seized my arm and pulled me close to him so that his lips brushed the
tip of my nose.

“This isn’t cute, Alice. Let’s end
this today. While you’re back in the States, let me help you get your life
straightened out.”

The noisy chatter of employees
making their way back into the building began to encompass us. My lips skirted
Pressley’s chin. “That’s assuming I want to be straightened out.” I stiffened
my fingers so that my hand resembled a sturdy plank and drew it up from my side
to chop the bend inside Pressley’s elbow. His arm jerked, surrendering his grip
on me. I spun around him, whirling towards the door, and scampered back through
the corridor I had taken to get the server room. I ran to the elevator that
would take me back up to Cibix’s main lobby. Pressley was running close behind
me. “Come on, come on,” I pleaded to the inanimate elevator doors.

The doors popped open and I tumbled
inside the elevator and frantically pressed buttons. With not even a second to
spare, the heavy doors snapped shut on the cusp of Pressley’s nose. I sunk my
chest into a deep, heaving breath of relief.

The relief was short-lived. “Hello
there,” a voice called from behind me.

I was not alone in the elevator. My
body jumped. I slowly turned, and standing behind me was Mr. Midlife crisis
from earlier that morning, comb over and all. His pudgy body was slacked against
the back corner of the elevator.

“Hi,” I said, turning away. I could
feel his small, untrustworthy eyes burrowing into the back of my pants.

“You an intern?” he asked. I
pretended not to hear, instead feigning a deep study of the shiny elevator control
buttons. “Because if you’re an intern, I can teach you a few things about
business
.”
My peripheral vision could see his gut hanging over his belt and the last
vestiges of thin, greasy hair combed over his shiny cone head.

“No thanks,” I coldly replied.

“I like the blue hair. It must mean
you have a wild side.” I felt the heat of his body encompass me as he moved
closer. The palm of his sweaty hand brushed up against my ass. I chocked back a
web of bile in my throat. My eyes flew open and I threw my hand out and slammed
on the red emergency button. The elevator came to an abrupt stop with a violent
thrust that sent him wobbling backwards.

I slowly and methodically pivoted
backwards to face him. “Excuse me?” I asked.

The man’s face was momentarily
brightened by a faulty premonition of intimacy. His tongue flicked over his
lips and he told me, “Yeah, I know a few business
tricks
of the trade I
would be willing to share with you.”

I took a purposeful step forward
and my eyes set upon him like raging lasers. “You shouldn’t have done that.”

“You liked it,” he said.

“While you’re enjoying your midlife
crisis, I am going to kick you in a place that’s going to cause you a real
crisis.”

His eyebrows furrowed. “What do you
mean, baby?”

“Baby?” I hiked my leg into the air
and torpedoed my foot into the crotch of his tan khaki pants. The man folded
over himself, letting a despairing grunt escape his lips.

“You bitch,” he wailed. He
staggered back to his feet, but I quickly cut him off with another swift kick
to the groin. When he unfolded to his feet the second time, I pinned both my
hands to the crook of his tacky silk necktie and tugged it with enough force to
rupture it from his body. I swung the tie in my hands, like a pelt taken in battle.