The Lightcap (22 page)

Adam had no idea how proficient Aria was with a blade, and he decided not to find out.  Pavel affected his best diplomatic tone to say, “Now, Aria, I appreciate you being proactive and bringing your own weapon, but we do still need Mister Redmon’s head connected to his shoulders.  I understand you’re frustrated, but you’ll have a chance soon enough to rescue Dej and mete out punishment.  We can be ready by tomorrow.”

“Good,” said Aria, her eyes on Pavel.  She put the blade away with a pronounced
thunk
as the sword’s guard met its scabbard, then glanced back at Adam.  “Sorry.”

“It’s fine.  I know you’re upset.  I am too.  How are you going to get that sword into the building?  I don’t think they’ll let you into 4C with it on your back.”  Adam rubbed his neck, almost glad they wouldn’t.

“Right.  You or Pavel will have to bring it in the chopper, and I’ll have to get it from you once we meet up in the Metra Corp building.  I’m almost done with the replica Lightcap, so I’ll hopefully have my wits and not be some kind of mindless robot.  I just need to print the final layers of the front module and double-check all the measurements.  I don’t think they’ll be looking that closely.  My biggest worry is I might not convince them I’m under the spell of the Lightcap.  Fortunately, we got to observe you on the first day of the project, so I at least have some idea.  Vacant expression.  Short, emotionless answers.  It won’t be easy for me, because I want to go in there and start tearing heads off, but I think I can do it.”  Adam could see her struggle and felt impressed by her strength.

“Excellent,” said Pavel, “because you’re going to be on your own for about two hours.  Once we get in the building, we’ll have to make it down one floor and then find you.  Feel free to attempt to disable the elevators and security system while you wait, it might reduce the amount of resistance we face.  Only if you feel safe doing so, of course.  We found diagrams of the layout in LaMont’s datafile, but unfortunately there was no seating chart.  We couldn’t find any information about the insulation in the ceiling.  Unless they’ve made an effort to soundproof, you should hear it when the retractable roof opens to allow the helicopter to land.  Once you hear the roof, wait five minutes and then start making your way toward the door for the south staircase.  We’ll meet yo—”

“Won’t someone notice if I get up and leave my desk?” Aria asked cautiously.

“It should be fine,” Pavel said with a wave of his hand.  “Remember, you’re only rarely under direct one-to-one control while wearing the Lightcap.  Most of the time you’re on autopilot.  Just act confident, and I doubt anyone will question you or even give you a second glance.  There
is
a security station about twenty feet down the hall from the staircase, but we’ll try and avoid notice.  We couldn’t find any data about how many Blues might be posted in that room.  Adam is sure there are at least two on that floor, based on his memories of what happened to Damen.  We should plan on as many as six or more.  Based on the size of the security station, that’s probably the maximum.”

“Will we have weapons?” Adam asked.  “Aria seems set, but I’d be just as likely to cut off my
own
head with something like a sword.  Have anything that’s a little more foolproof, like a gun or something?”

Pavel burst into laughter.  His stomach bounced against his legs, and his chair swung back and forth, as if he were saying no with his entire body, not just his head.  When his laugher subsided, he said, “Guns?  If we had tried to get guns, the Blues would’ve already knocked down the front door. I am going to bring a small pistol, a thirty-eight special, two-shot derringer.  It belonged to my father, and I’ve never had a chance to use it.  Ammunition is so scarce these days I’ve never even fired the thing.  The bullets have been in the chamber for almost twenty years now.  Hopefully it still fires!” He chuckled.  “I’m too damned old to swing a sword or get into a fistfight.

“For you,” Pavel continued, pointing at Adam, “I’m going to give you the device Dej has been working on.  It has one button, which accomplishes two things when pressed: it sends a command inducing panic in anyone wearing a Lightcap within a fifty foot radius.  Then it kills the radio so no further commands can be received.  It requires a substantial amount of power, so you only get to press that button twice and then it’s worthless without a recharge.  Try not to use it unless absolutely necessary.”  Pavel reached into a drawer next to his chair and pulled out a box, wide and short.  He opened it and said, “I also got one of these for each of us.  Ballistic vests made from woven nanotubes.  Strong, lightweight.  They’ll provide protection to your torso from projectiles and bladed weapons, but they’ll still hurt like hell, so don’t get shot or stabbed.”  He pulled the vests out of the box and handed them over.

“Since I’ll have my gun and Aria will have her sword, you can take these,” he said.  He handed Adam a small box roughly the same size as his palm.  Adam opened it to find Electrodusters.  Pavel saw Adam’s surprise and said, “You wanted something you couldn’t klutz up.  This is it.  Just put them on and punch.  They deliver over nine hundred thousand volts as soon as they hit skin.  Doesn’t get much easier than that.  They hardcode to the wearer’s DNA so you can’t zap yourself.  The part that makes contact when you punch is a platinum tungsten alloy.  Even without the shock, it still won’t feel great.  Try not to hurt yourself.  To be honest, if any of us gets to the point of needing to rely on these weapons, it’s probably already over.”

The grim meaning of Pavel’s words settled over the room.  Pavel himself appeared dejected, as if he had already resigned himself to imminent death.  Adam could only see anger in Aria’s expression.  He was a coder not a fighter, and felt woefully unprepared for a scenario requiring electrodusters and ballistic vests.  He looked around the room, wondering how he appeared to the others.

The group passed the rest of the evening going over the logistics of the plan and making sure their supplies were accounted for, ready, and tested to the degree they could.  Aria finished the replica Lightcap, and it was indistinguishable from Hana’s Lightcap to the naked eye.  Adam wasn’t convinced their plan would work, especially the part when they somehow managed to infiltrate the top floor of the headquarters of the largest corporation in the Region.  By comparison, their plan to gain access to the Adaptech building felt almost easy.

Pavel came up with the plan, and they sat in a circle as he went over the details.  “The top five floors of the Adaptech building, mostly executive offices and conference rooms, are access controlled.  Aria, you’ll need to get to Adaptech before the rest of the programming team.  Adam, you and I will sneak in through the back loading dock, where there’s almost no security, and make our way up the stairwell to the 160
^th
floor, where Aria will open the door so we can proceed to the roof.  She’ll then head to room 4C while we wait in the stairwell near the roof.  Aria will fly over to Metra Corp on the JMR-Heavy with the rest of the v6 team.  This assumes no one at Adaptech knows about her relationship with Dej and that the Lightcap replica doesn’t somehow give her away.  Once the copter returns from the Metra Corp building for its second run, we’ll exit onto the roof, keeping low and running between the massive cooling units to keep out of sight, eventually making it to the raised dais of the helipad.  A cargo elevator is used for loading supplies, so we should be fine in the stairwell until we’re ready to make our move.

“A crew of two fly the chopper, along with another two guarding the landing platform.  The helipad is roughly ten feet above the roof, which should give us ample cover from being seen by the guards.  They load from the side facing the cargo elevator, and that’s the direction I think the guards will be facing as they watch the workers who are loading the chopper. I believe the guard’s primary task is to watch the employees during loading to minimize shrinkage, so they should pay us no mind.”  Pavel lifted up a pile of rope and metal.  “I’ve also got these grappling hooks.  We’ll use them to climb the wall and get up to the platform.”  Adam felt slightly comforted by the amount of thought Pavel had clearly put into this.

The doctor drew paths across printed blueprints, indicating their planned trek across a plateau in the clouds.  The trio synchronized its watches.  Pavel and Adam offered aesthetic assessments to Aria in her counterfeit Lightcap, plans gone over second and third times to ensure consistency.  They ended their night with a toast offered by Troyka, a vintage 1930s vodka that had belonged to his father.  They drank to their departed friends and to their chances of saving those who still survived.  The cool drift of alcohol spread out at the back of Adam’s tongue and pooled into a warmth at the bottom of his stomach. 

Aria left her sword with Adam, after giving him a hug and apologizing for drawing it on him earlier in a rare show of emotion.  Pavel gave Adam a hearty handshake.  “Sleep well,” he admonished with a tone of fatherly concern.

Adam lay in bed awake until his frantic mind felt it had to be nearly dawn, though only an hour had actually passed before he fell asleep.  He dreamed a memory from his youth of a weekend spent on an island with his parents, two days of laughter, embraces, and warm breezes carried over the lake.  The sights and sounds of his father and mother smiling and joking with him over food and fire relaxed Adam’s mind and, in his bed in Pavel’s house, his body.  A look of contentment passed across his face.  Adam slept deeply and well, though for all any of them knew, it might be the last sleep any of them would enjoy.

It was a peaceful dream.

Pavel shook Adam awake early the next morning when it was still dark.  Adam felt certain he had closed his eyes only minutes before, but the clock next to his bed proved to him several hours had passed.  He rubbed his eyes blearily, then made his way to the common room, where their supplies were laid out.  Weapons, ropes, and boxes ran the length of the table.  Pavel loaded the grappling hooks and other materials into a backpack while Adam got ready.  He looked as if he planned to go for a day of hiking, or maybe to some evening classes, not to stow away on a helicopter and infiltrate the headquarters of the biggest corporation in the Region.  Two ballistic vests on the table reminded Adam that Aria had taken hers the previous evening.  Adam put his on at the same time as Pavel, surprised by how tight it felt against his chest, his lungs straining against straps with each deep breath.  Adam hit his own solar plexus, imagining a gunshot, and felt the nanotube weave of the vest tighten and disperse the energy of the impact.  The blow still hurt, but not nearly as much as it would have without the vest.

Adam fitted the electrodusters on his right hand, covered them with a glove, and wrapped the katana handle and sheath in a blanket before he slung it across his back under the cover of his jacket.  They had to avert suspicion on the subway.  There would be no rescue if someone called the Blues before they made it to the Adaptech building.  Pavel threw his backpack around his shoulders silently, and tucked the derringer pistol into his pocket, his jacket pulled down to disguise the telltale outline of the gun against his pant leg.  The old man, his hair on end and stubble sprouting from his cheeks as on the day they met on the subway, turned to Adam and asked, “Are you ready?”

“Yes.  Well, I think so,” Adam said sheepishly.  “I have everything I’m supposed to bring.  I guess that means I’m ready.”  He silently cursed himself for sounding so unsure, so afraid.  If there was ever a time for false bravado, this was it.  “I’m ready.  Let’s go,” he said with more authority.

Pavel nodded with understanding.  He walked over to the door, swung it open, its bottom scraping against the cold tile floor, and left the house.  Adam followed, closing the door behind him.

Adam had not been outside in many days, at the insistence of his caretakers. His requests for specific information had been answered by Pavel, Aria, or Dej.  Pavel’s part of town was even more dilapidated than where Aria lived, though it was just a handful of blocks away.  Adam found the neighborhood dingy and aged, made worse by the grey slush gathered in the gutters and the dark early-morning clouds.  A rain not quite cold enough to freeze fell, and Adam occasionally heard the sound of snow piles sliding off rooftops, their barely audible scrapes followed by hollow thuds as they hit the ground.

Their faces obscured by scarves and hats, their remaining features blocked from the cameras by the ramble-jamblers around their necks, for all intents and purposes invisible and unknowable, Pavel and Adam made their way out of the ghetto to a functioning subway station.  They avoided the platforms in this part of town since they were in various states of disrepair or enclaves for illegal activities, not wanting to use their weapons prematurely.  As they neared the stairs leading to the underground rails of the nearest acceptable station, Pavel turned to Adam and said, “I think we should split up here.  I don’t foresee it being much of an issue, but people may remember your face from the news broadcasts after Montery and Slate were murdered.  It’s my hope they’ve forgotten you after Jared’s execution.  The winter clothes will help, anyway.  We’ll approach the Adaptech building from the east side, to avoid anyone who might know you, and end up at the loading dock.  We’ll meet there and go in together.  Keep me in sight while we’re on our way to the building.”