The Nexus Series: Books 1-3 (30 page)

17

“THIS
is ridiculous,” Dizzie said from the passenger seat.

They were headed
south along the eastern shore of Lake Anterra.  The towers across the lake
reflected in the still waters.  On their left Earth was darkening in the
night sky.  They were both dressed all in black.

“I’m just a
techie,” Dizzie’s lament went on, “not a field agent!  I belong at a
computer, not on some dangerous mission.”

Jill laughed.

Dizzie shot her a
look.  “What’s so funny?”

“You’ve been
complaining the whole drive so far.”

“Why shouldn’t I
complain?”

“Because you’re
thrilled to be doing this, that’s why.”

Dizzie beamed a
smile.  “I’m
so
thrilled to be doing this!  You don’t even
know.  You get to do this sort of thing all the time, but me...I mean,
look
at us; we look awesome!  We’re like two bad chicks from the movies, or
something.  Hey, why are we wearing gloves?  Oh, it’s so we don’t
leave fingerprints, isn’t it? 
So
cool!”

They passed the
lake and saw the cluster of tall, blocky buildings that made up
Davarius
University. 

Jill parked down
a dark side street a few blocks away, and they headed toward the campus on
foot.  It looked mysterious.  Floodlights along the base of the
buildings made the white walls seem to glow in the dark.  Dizzie found the
whole atmosphere exhilarating and kept saying so until Jill suggested she shut
up.  She agreed it wasn’t a bad idea.

They approached
the
Grigorsky
Building at the edge of the
campus.  A shrub-lined walkway bordered the building.  They crouched
in some bushes while a couple of students walked by arm-in-arm whispering sweet
nothings to each other.

Then the coast
was clear.  They slipped across the walkway, through another wall of
shrubs, and into the bed of river rock at the base of the thirteen-story
wall.  They slipped around the corner and came to the door to the
emergency stairwell.  Dizzie had spent the afternoon hacking into the
Davarius
security system and manufacturing a keycard to
match the ones carried by university staff.

She was reaching
into her pocket now.  She dug around for a moment, and
frowned.    “Um, I gave you the keycard, right?”

Jill tried not to
glare at her.  “You’re kidding, right?”

Dizzie
snorted.  “Yep, I am.”  She held the card up victoriously.

“Don’t do that
again.”

“Oh, come
on!  Have a little fun on the job.”  Dizzie slid the card in the
slot.  The light next to the door handle turned green.

At the ninth
floor they exited the stairwell and turned right.  The place was
dead.  The only light came from the exit signs at either end of the
hall.  They key-carded into Valentine’s office suite.  A small lamp
glowed from the reception desk.

“Let’s do it,”
said Jill.

Dizzie jumped in
front of the computer.  “First, to change the guest list.”  She
bypassed the username and password, then began searching for the guest list for
the gala.

Meanwhile Jill
took out her phone.  “Okay,” she said, holding it out before her.

A message
appeared on her screen: 
Hold your phone up a bit higher if you don’t
mind, Miss Branch.

She did. 
Soon a 3-D model of the reception room appeared on her screen.  Jill
examined the image.  A red light blinked in the top of the filing cabinet
in one corner of the room.

Jill went to the
actual filing cabinet, picked the top drawer’s lock, and pulled it open. 
“Bingo.”  She pulled out a stack of three-by-five cards, blank except for
printed ivy borders.  There would be forty-seven of them; the gala had
nine hundred fifty-three invited guests, and the order from Reaming Stationary,
Inc., had been for one thousand printable invitations.

Dizzie turned
from the computer.  “Already?  Wait, Sherlock detected where they
were, didn’t he?  That’s cheating!”

“That’s
efficiency,” Jill responded.  “How are you coming along?”

“Are you sure you
want to be named Fiona?”

“Why not? 
It’s the director’s mother’s name.”

Dizzie
gulped.  “Oh.  Lovely name.  Hold on, I’ve got to make sure we
all appear on the list in alphabetical order.”

“Can I help?”

“Set those cards
in the printer tray.”

Soon Dizzie had
saved the updated guest list on the university’s central network.  Then
she found the document Valentine’s secretary had used to print the invitations,
and made the necessary additions.

A couple minutes
later, six new invitations had been printed.

“Nothing to it,”
said Dizzie.  “Are these sort of things always this easy?”

“Rarely.”

“Well, you should
take me along more often!  I ought to apply for a transfer.”  Dizzie
gloved fingers fluttered across the keyboard again.  “Just let me cover my
tracks, and we’re out of here.”

Jill looked down
at the invitation with her name on it—or rather, with her alias, Fiona
Gabbart
.  “I’ve never been to anything like this.”

“A university
gala?”

“Any sort of
formal party.”

“You mean you
didn’t go to any dances or anything in high school?”

“Nope.  Too
busy with...work, at the time.”

“Well,” Dizzie
said as she stood from the computer, “we’re
gonna
make sure you’re not too busy to enjoy
this
party too!  I’m taking
you dress shopping.”

Jill
unconsciously took a step back.  “Um, that’s all right.  I’ll just
wear something I already have.”

Dizzie’s mouth
fell open.  “Are you kidding me?”  She shook her head.  “I’m not
asking, Jill.  You’re coming with me; you got that?  We’re getting
you the most beautiful dress you’ve ever owned—maybe that
any
body’s ever
owned.  And before the gala we’re getting manicures and pedicures, and
getting our hair done at a real salon.”

Jill wrung her
hands.  “I don’t know, Diz.”

Dizzie put a hand
on her shoulder.  “Just try to think of it as a night out, not a mission.”

Jill’s eyes
shifted.

Dizzie
sighed.   “Okay, just try to think of it as really selling your cover
for the mission.”

Jill
nodded.  “All right.”

“DO
you have a minute?” Corey asked from the director’s office door.

Director Holiday
always had time for his recruits.  He rolled his chair out from behind his
computer.  “Of course.  Have a seat.”

Corey’s forehead
was creased with unease.  “It’s about Amber.”

“Ah.  I was
wondering when we’d be having this conversation.”

Corey cleared his
throat.  “No, it’s nothing like that.  I mean—you know I have
feelings for her.”

“Anyone with eyes
and half a brain knows that.  But that’s not the conversation I mean.”

“Then you’re
worried about her too?”

“Depends on what you
mean by worried.  Why don’t you tell me about your own concerns?”

It wasn’t easy to
say, but he had to say it.  “Something’s...not right.  During our
mission at the port, all it took was one look at Cordova’s shuttle for her to
know exactly where the secret compartment would be.  She knew
a lot
about how they would be doing the job, actually.  I eventually got it out
of her that her dad used to be a smuggler.  She didn’t say anything more
about it.”

“I see.  And
this is keeping you up at night?”

“Not only
that.  Did you notice how easily she hacked into Section 46’s security
computers?  And the other day I overheard someone mention that Amber has
her preliminary shuttle pilot’s license.  The more I’m around her, the
more I can tell that she’s...well, she’s hiding something.  A lot of
things, probably.  She’s not who she seems to be, Director.”

“I don’t disagree
with you.”

Corey laughed
humorlessly.  “You don’t seem to think it’s a very big deal.”

Holiday leaned
forward.  “Are
you
who you seem to be?”

Corey leaned
back.  “What do you mean?”

“You’re beginning
to stumble across suspicious details about Amber’s past.  You seem to be
upset that she hasn’t let you in on them up to now.  But have you spoken
to her about your own past?”

Corey
shrugged.  “She knows I was an errander.”

Holiday’s
steel-gray eyes locked onto him.  “Your past is more than your brief
hiatus as an errander, Corey.”

He looked
away.  “I know,” he said softly.  “No, I haven’t told her
everything.”

“You want to be
close to her, don’t you?”

“Of course I
do.  But...”

“But what? 
But it’s not easy to be so vulnerable—to open up about the deepest, darkest
secrets of your past?  No more for her than for you!”

Corey looked at
the floor.  “I guess I never thought about it that way.”

Holiday softened. 
“Your motives are true, Corey.  I know it’s not been long since we
discovered a traitor among our own ranks.  And I’m glad to see that your
feelings for Amber are not blinding you to the possibility of flaws in her own
character.  It shows maturity on your part.”

“I’m willing to
grant her
her
flaws.  I know I have plenty of my
own.  But I just wish I could shake this nagging feeling that...”  He
couldn’t say it out loud. 
That she’ll betray us
. 

“Perhaps you
should show a little more confidence in your director,” said Holiday. 
“You don’t think what you’re telling me is news to me, do you?  You don’t
suppose I bring recruits into this department willy-nilly, without learning a
thing about them?”

“So you already
knew about her dad?”

“And plenty
else.  But that’s not for me to divulge.  I can’t settle your
doubts—that’s between you and her.  We may be spies by vocation, but we
have to remember that some people’s secrets are not there for us to go digging
after; they are their own, to reveal when—and
if
—they choose to do so.”

Corey
nodded.  “I guess I just have to wait until she’s ready.”

“Perhaps there’s
one thing you could do to help her feel ready sooner.”

“What’s that?”

But he realized
he knew the answer before Holiday said it.  “Open up to her first.”

THE
rest of the team joined Jill and Dizzie on their shopping trip.  All five
of them piled into a department vehicle and headed to the Aurora Bridge Mall
next morning.  Jill looked around at the sunlit tiers of the outdoor
mall.  Shoppers milled in and out of the shops and along the railed
walkways overlooking the river.  Last time she’d been here, it wasn’t
exactly to buy a dress for a party.

Dizzie explained
her “first rule of dress shopping” to Jill:  You never buy the first dress
that catches your eye, even if it fits perfectly.  You try on several and
pick one of them, or if none of them are just right, you try on several more.”

“How do you know
if it’s ‘just right’ or not?” asked Jill.

“When you’ve
found the one, you’ll just know it.”

“What if I don’t?”

Dizzie threw up
her hands.  “Then
I’ll
tell you!”

That was a
relief.  “Okay, good.”

“Are you talking
about guys?” asked Amber, walking up next to them just then.

“No,” said
Dizzie.  “But the same rules apply, come to think of it.”

Jill tried not to
get impatient as they went to one formalwear shop after another.  The boys
found tuxes within twenty minutes; Corey said they would stay with the girls
for moral support.  Bradley grudgingly agreed.

At shop number
five Amber emerged from the dressing room wearing a stunning aqua-colored
dress.  “What do you think?” she asked hesitantly.

Jill rolled her
eyes.  It seemed like Amber had tried on about a thousand dresses so far,
and of course she looked fabulous in every one of them.

Corey didn’t even
realize he’d been staring until a long moment had passed.  He snapped out
of his trance and muttered something to Amber about how the color worked well
on her.

“I’ll take it,”
Amber told the store associate.

“Try this one,”
Dizzie told Jill at the next shop, gesturing toward a satiny, vivid red gown.

Jill
frowned.  “It’s a little too...I don’t know.  I was thinking
something black; something less attention-drawing.”

Dizzie was
already tugging Jill toward the dressing room.  “Just try it,” she
urged.  “Remember, trying it on is free—no obligations!”

“Good thing,”
muttered Jill, “as many of these things as you’re making me try on.”

She stepped out
shyly a few moments later.  “Well?”

Dizzie clapped
her hands.  “That’s the one!”

“I haven’t even
zipped the back yet.  Do you mind helping me out with that, by the way?”

“Of course
not!  Oh my gosh, Jill, you look
amazing!
” Dizzie bubbled.

“Thanks,” said
Jill, feeling a bit of gratitude along with her general embarrassment. 
She glanced around and happened to meet Corey’s eyes across the store.

He stared at her
at least as long as he’d stared at Amber.

THEY
had a late lunch at the mall’s food court.  Jill and Dizzie got Chinese
and found a table next to a raised flowerbed.

After a while
Jill noticed Corey and Amber at a table across the court.  They hadn’t
bought anything to eat or drink.  Amber was saying something insistently,
and Corey was shaking his head with a frown.

“Want to try the
orange chicken?” asked Dizzie, holding her plate toward Jill.  “It’s not
bad.”

Jill rolled her
eyes.  “If you want to try my sweet-and-sour shrimp, you can just ask,
Diz!”

“Can I try your
sweet-and-sour shrimp?”