The Nexus (12 page)

The driver shrugged and gunned the engine.  The bus was out over the lake again.

Jerry G looked back toward the massive island complex.  His job was done.  But Jill’s had just started.  He bit his lip and prayed she’d be all right.  Could you pray for a crime?  Maybe if it was someone’s last crime ever...

SHE was just one of a sea of humanity rolling toward the front doors.  By the time she was in the entryway the lines at the scanners were already backed up, and security personnel were scrambling.

Jill smiled.  So far, so good.

MARTIN P. Daniels parked in his reserved spot near the elevator.  He was fairly early, as usual.  He got on the elevator and descended one floor to the entryway.

The moment he stepped off the elevator his semi-good mood evaporated.  As early as it was, the lines at the scanners were still fairly long and didn’t seem to be moving at all.  Security people were running around with all-too-serious expressions on their faces.

“What’s the deal?” Daniels asked the guy in line in front of him.

“Some kind of trouble.  They’re not letting anyone through at the moment.”

“So should we ride down to another entrance?”

“I wouldn’t,” said the guy.  “That’s where the trouble is.”

“What trouble?”

“Sounds like everyone’s IDs are scanning with the same name and profile—somebody named Daniel or something like that.”

Martin P. Daniels groaned.

The lines got longer and longer behind him.  Everyone who had arrived after Daniels had walked by his car—which meant their IDs contained his profile as well.

“OF course I’m seeing what’s happening!” the head of GoCom security barked into the phone in his office.  “We’ve suddenly got thirty-five hundred Martin P. Danielses on the premises, and more arriving every second...No, our computers aren’t the problem...No, the IDs can’t be the problem either!  How could this guy’s info get programmed onto hundreds of ID cards overnight?...I have no idea!  We’re working on it.”

The phone rang again the instant he hung up.  He didn’t answer this time.

His assistant burst into his twentieth-story office with a tray of coffee, which he slurped down without a word of thanks.  “So what do we do?” she asked him.

He thought hard for a minute.  “Tell them to shut off the scanners and let them all in.  We’ll have to get someone at each gate to check IDs visually.”

“How can they check them if the scanners...?”

“They’ve got photographs on them, don’t they?  What else can we do?  Shut down the government for the day?”

“Right, sir.  I’ll spread the word.”

The phone rang again.  The head of security rolled his eyes and snatched up the receiver.  “What?”

“I’ve received some new information, sir.”

“Will it help us fix this problem?”

“Perhaps.”

Not as reassuring as he hoped, but it would have to do.  “I’m listening.”

“Do you recognize the name Martin P. Daniels?”

“You mean besides the fact that everyone seems to have adopted it for the day?  No, should I?”

“His ID was stolen earlier this week.”

“Yeah?”

“By the girl who escaped from jail.”

Now the head of security was listening intently.

TEN stories beneath the chaos, Corey Stone parked a department car and led the way as he and Bradley Park entered HQ.  They circled the balcony to Dino’s lab.

“Dino, we got it,” Corey called through the door.

The funny little man peeked out and looked at the device they’d brought back with them.  “Yeah, that’s a VCR all right.”

Bradley Park nodded.  “Took some serious hunting.”

It turned out Mr. Love wasn’t interested in watching illegal videocassettes so much as selling them or renting them out.  He didn’t own a VCR—or if he did it was so buried beneath the clutter of his apartment that they hadn’t been able to find one despite a thorough search.  But as Dino had observed, Love’s clients had to own VCRs or they wouldn’t be Love’s clients.  They had tracked down the address of one of them, obtained a search warrant, and finally nabbed a VCR.

“And you rounded up the rest of Love’s videocassettes for me, right?” asked Dino.

“They’re in the evidence storage room,” said Bradley.  “About fifty of them.”

“Well,” said Dino, “looks like I’ll be verifying the content of those videotapes for a while.”

Corey rolled his eyes.  “You mean you’ll be sitting back in your easy chair watching illegal movies for a while.”

“Work, work, work,” Dino said shaking his head.  “Now if you’ll excuse me, I have a lot of popcorn to pop in preparation.”

Dizzie appeared just then in the doorway.  “Finally, you’re back!”  She seemed out of breath.

“You missed us that bad?” asked Corey.

“Aren’t you off shift until this evening?” asked Bradley.

She ignored both comments.  “Do you have any idea what’s going on up there?”

They shook their heads.

Corey dashed away before she’d finished explaining.

BY the time Jill made it through the line at her gate, the female security guard at the scanner smiled apologetically.  “Sorry about the delay, Miss.  We’re having some technical difficulties this morning.”

“No problem.”  Jill handed over her GoCom ID.  It had her picture, and the name matched the name on her current standard ID.  She hadn’t used Matt at Northshore Garage for that job.  She found another reliable source who wouldn’t keep ogling her and asking her out.

The guard waved her through with hardly a glance at the ID card.  “Have a nice day.”

“You too.”

She was in.

Now she crossed the lobby toward a door in the corner.  She’d carefully studied the GoCom layout (illegally accessed by Jerry G) to figure out the best route to the elevator which led down to Holiday’s department.  It wasn’t a very long walk.  Another security guard hurried past her as she went.

A moment later this guard was handing a printout to the guard who had just let Jill through.  “This just came from upstairs,” he told her, handing her the paper.  “Keep your eyes open for this one.”

The woman looked at the face on the printout.

She cursed under her breath.

JILL was in the hallway off the main lobby.  She turned a corner, then another, then branched into a narrow corridor with no doors.  The farther she got the fewer people she saw.

After another turn or two she was alone in the wood-paneled room with the elevator.  She pressed the button, and stepped on the moment it arrived.

When the doors closed behind her she felt a bit of relief.  She was safe...for the moment.

Not safe enough to forget to take her gun out of the specially sealed briefcase and tuck it in her suit.

With one hand she held the button that kept the doors closed.  With the other hand she took the panel off the elevator wall.  She’d seen the code punched in twice, now, and she’d remembered it perfectly after the first time anyway.

It didn’t work.  They must have changed the code.

Jill had planned for the possibility.  She hadn’t just remembered the code; she’d remembered the manufacturer of the console.  It hadn’t taken much work to find the override mechanism.  She pulled it out of her briefcase.  Within seconds the number appeared on the console.

The elevator started descending.

The doors opened half a minute later.  There was the blue carpet with the department insignia, the framed photos of Home Planet skylines.  She stepped off.

...And felt cold metal touch the back of her head.

“Don’t move.”

She knew it would be Corey Stone’s voice before he spoke.

“I’ve been waiting for you to turn up,” he said.

“Look,” she said, “I don’t have time—”

“You don’t have time to argue with me.  Look on the bright side:  No more being on the run all the time!”

She ducked, spun, reached for her weapon.

He was ready.  He blocked her move, sent her gun flying, still had his leveled at her.  “Not this time, Jill.”

Her eyes said she was genuinely impressed.  Her mouth said:  “You know why I came back, don’t you?”

“I don’t care why you came back.  I just care about where you’re going next—and I think you know where that is.”

“Holiday said he would give me another chance if I came back and accepted his offer face to face.”

“So I heard.  One last test of your skills.  And you almost passed.”  He pressed the gun harder against her temple.  “But not quite.  So close and yet so far.”

She made another move.  He was ready again.  He caught her hand, seized it, held it behind her.  “I can lead you back to jail,” he said, “or I can have your unconscious body carried back to jail.  Your choice.”

She didn’t try to escape his grip.  She didn’t try to argue with him either.  “I don’t blame you for what you’re doing.”

“Don’t try to soften me.  I’ve learned how you operate.”

“I was raised in crime, Corey.  It’s all I’ve ever known.  I’m guessing you didn’t accept Holiday’s offer right away either.”

He hesitated for an instant.  “Stop.  I know what you’re trying to do.”

“Look, throwing me back in jail would be the only logical thing you could do.  I know that.  But it seems like there’s more to this place than that kind of logic.”

Corey didn’t respond.  He didn’t lower his weapon either.  Jill assumed it was loaded with stunners—but it would be understandable if he was packing something more potent.

“If we all went behind bars if we deserved it,” said Jill, “you’d be in the cell next to mine, wouldn’t you?”

He wasn’t looking at her any more.  He was staring at nothing.

She kept going.  “Listen, you have no reason to believe me.  But I promise you, the minute I step out of line again I’ll be the first one to bring myself back to jail.”

A touch of softness appeared in Corey Stone’s hardened expression.  His gun dropped slightly.

“This is the only chance I’ve got, Corey.  I know I don’t even deserve it, but this is it.  You know it.  Please don’t take it away from me.”

He sighed and slowly holstered his gun.  “In his office,” he said, gesturing to the stairway off the side of the wide lobby.

“Thanks,” she whispered.

By the time Corey could bring himself to look her direction again, the office door was closing behind her.

THE last time she’d been in this room she was handcuffed and accompanied by two rather large men in armored uniforms.

Giles Holiday stood from behind his desk.  His expression was unreadable.  The slightly raised eyebrows may have meant surprise, or maybe amusement.  Maybe neither.

“Purpose,” said Jill.

His steel-gray eyes told her to go on.

“If I did something with my life,” she said, “that I 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, then what would I have?”

He smiled.

They said it at the same time:  “Purpose.”

“You knew the answer all along,” said Holiday, “didn’t you?”

“Somewhere deep down I guess I did.  You were right: it’s the one thing I’ve never had.”

“Until now,” he said.  He took a touch screen from his desk drawer, and walked over to Jill.  On the screen was a lot of fine print.  “The contract,” he said, handing Jill the electronic pen.

She signed the line at the bottom.

“Welcome to The Nexus, Jillian.  Let me show you around.”

“WHY was Anterra built, Jillian?  Why did the United Space Programs create it in the first place?”

Jill knew what answer to recite.  Anyone who had gone to school on Anterra past the third grade knew.  “The nations of the Home Planet were becoming more and more corrupt.  The United Space Programs wanted to build a better place for humanity—a place that was more advanced, more progressive, safer.”

Holiday nodded.  They were standing at the back of his office, where the wall panels had slid into the ceiling and revealed a bank of windows.  They looked down on the great floor of HQ, abuzz with activity.

“The floating city was to be a step toward heaven—literally,” Holiday continued.  “As you know, the first eight metropolitan satellites were largely experimental.  Engineers from all over the world worked on them.  They had a lot of problems to solve.  How would they create an illusion of gravity similar to the gravitational force felt on Earth?  How would a breathable atmosphere be maintained?  Finally they built MS9, the first inhabitable satellite city.  Of course, as it turned out, our biggest problems have not been engineering problems at all.”