Word and Breath (24 page)

It was an alphabetical keypad. He never would have been able to use it.

Feeling like an ignorant fool, he slid the keyboard over to Riana. She didn’t even appear to notice—certainly didn’t look at him condescendingly or insultingly. She just started to type.

He couldn’t follow her search very well. It was done mostly in silence and—although he carefully observed the keys she punched on the board—he couldn’t read the words they formed on the monitor. He assumed she was searching the word “Steeple,” however, and the number of hits her search brought up was very discouraging.

They had no choice but to look through them all. The archives were cataloged on the computers—accessible only from this building—with a brief sample of the document included with each entry to make it easier to search. To read the document itself, you had to go find where the paper copy was filed.

It was too dangerous, Union officials had decided several decades ago when the archives had been created, to keep all of the documents and records of the Union in computerized form, in case the network could be hacked.

Mikel watched silently as Riana worked on the computer. She murmured to herself as she searched. Sometimes hopeful expressions, “Maybe this one…” or “Oh, this could be it.” And sometimes disappointment, “Just a random reference,” or “I have no idea what that one is about.”

It took about a half-hour for her to find what she needed. A half-hour during which Mikel became more and more on his guard. The longer they stayed here, the more risk there was of being discovered.

Things were going smoothly now, but any number of random incidents could blow their cover.

Finally, Riana said, “Here it is. The Steeple Project. Classified program with the Newtown Office of Public Security.” She mumbled the call numbers to herself to remember them and jumped up to search for the document in the walls of files that filled the large room.

Mikel followed her.

She found the correct file drawer easily and rifled through it until she pulled out a thick file.

Mikel smothered a groan as he saw the size of it. It would take forever to read though that whole thing.

But Riana didn’t look discouraged. She was already starting, her eyes alight with an appealing excitement. She glanced over the first pages and flipped them to the side, obviously recognizing they weren’t what she needed.

“Here we go,” she said, keeping her voice low. “An overview of the project.” She started to read out loud, and Mikel listened carefully, intent on remembering all of the details.

The Steeple Project was, as Connor had claimed, an attempt to use experimental technology to eavesdrop on the covert communications of the free islands and the uncivilized tribes across the ocean.

The project had been headed by Largan, then an ambitious mid-level Union official. Ultimately the technology hadn’t done what they’d wanted it to do, so they’d turned to other methods of getting intelligence.

Riana was on the third page before they finally got to what they needed: the location of the headquarters of the project. It was in an underground bunker—hidden so that rebels and trouble-makers wouldn’t find out about the project and challenge it. The bunker was accessed from the Newtown Office of Public Security.

“Well,” Mikel said, blinking a few times as he processed this. “I suppose that makes sense. If they’re keeping Jannie for a particular reason, they’d need to be able to easily get to her. Does it say how to access the bunker?”

Riana scanned a few more sheets of paper. “No,” she said, frowning in disappointment. “Just that it’s accessed through that main building.” Flipping through the rest of the pages in the file, she concluded, “The rest of this stuff isn’t any help. I think we’ve found as much as we can here.”

Mikel nodded and pulled Riana to her feet. “We did pretty good. We know where to start now. We better get out of here while we can.”

Riana quickly returned the file to the drawer and followed Mikel to the front of the room, only pausing briefly to clear the search screen on the monitor.

Then they started back through the hall and down the stairs.

Mikel was quite pleased with their success. They’d done what they needed, neatly and without incident. No one had gotten hurt, and they hadn’t been discovered.

Perhaps, when the security logs were screened later on, their visit would be discovered and Mikel’s identity would be noted. But that probably wouldn’t happen for a few days, and by that time he hoped to have Riana’s sister back to her and taken them both far away to a free island.

As they pushed through the stairwell door onto the first floor hall, Mikel noticed an emergency exit to his right. He’d seen the exit on the security plans he’d studied last night. One couldn’t get in the door from the outside, which is why he’d passed over it as an option for entering the Archives, but he made instinctive note of it before they turned back toward the lobby.

An alarm would sound if they opened the door, but it was always good to have a backup plan, in case things went wrong.

Not that anything appeared in danger of going wrong. He could sense the growing excitement in Riana as they quickly approached the lobby, through which they could leave the building in safety. The hallway was empty, and in the lobby they’d simply have to go through the last checkpoint where they’d be scanned for hidden documents, rather than weapons or cameras.

And then they’d be home free.

“I can’t believe it,” Riana breathed, slanting him an awed look. One he greatly appreciated, since she’d wordlessly given him credit for their success.

“One more min—” he began, before someone entering the hall broke off his words.

It was just a harmless looking young man, with messy hair and not a full growth of beard. He wore a name tag that identified him as an archive employee.

Nothing to worry about. Mikel nodded at him politely as he put a hand on Riana’s back to move her forward toward the door to the lobby.

Because he was close to her, he heard her quick intake of breath. And he saw her swing her hair forward over her shoulder as she looked away from the approaching young man.

Mikel’s crisis instincts kicked in, realizing that Riana must recognize the man. “Is it raining outside yet, do you know?” he asked, in a louder, more jovial voice than he ever used naturally.

As he’d wanted, the young man focused on him, giving him a rather startled smile. “Just started. I was hoping it would hold off until I got home tonight.”

It was their misfortune that Riana was so gorgeous in the heels, fitted suit, and loose hair. The young man’s gaze strayed over to her, leading Mikel to adjust his position to block what he could of her from view. “Too bad,” Mikel said. “We had to park several blocks away.”

They’d passed the man, and Mikel was starting to hope he hadn’t recognized Riana. Maybe he hadn’t known her very well. She hadn’t mentioned having any friends in the Archives.

When Mikel risked a glance back, he saw the young man was looking over his shoulder, a look of surprised recognition washing over his youthful face. “Riana?”

Mikel didn’t waste any time. He made a snap decision, choosing to grab Riana and start back toward the emergency exit at the end of the hall instead of out into the lobby where there would be numerous guards and lockdown capabilities.

There were lockdown capabilities in this hall too, but at the moment only one man who could trigger them.

As he pulled Riana into a run, Mikel swung out at the man, making his swing both a punch and an attempt to open enough of a connection to stun.

The blow caught the man on the side of the head, propelling him back toward the wall. It was a good hit, but the scraggly beard and the long hair got in the way of a clean connection with his skin.

Mikel broke into a run, pulling Riana with him. She was in good shape, but she was hampered by her heels and her short skirt. When Mikel found himself dragging her to the point of risking her falling, he had to slow down slightly.

He looked back as he did and saw the man had straightened up, holding a hand to his bruised jaw. He hadn’t followed Riana and Mikel, but Mikel had never thought he would.

Their real danger was in the touch pads placed strategically in every hall in the building. Mikel had noted at least a dozen of them as they’d gone to find the historical documents. One button on the touch pad triggered the alarms. The other triggered the hall to lock down.

In case of emergency, employees were trained to hit both.

As he’d feared, the man was already reaching for the touch pad.

“Hurry,” Mikel gritted out, adjusting his grip to Riana’s upper arm so he could give her more support as well as pull her along.

They were about fifty feet from the exit now. Not really very far at all.

Riana didn’t complain or whine about his pulling. She didn’t even respond except to yank her skirt up a little more to give her legs more freedom to run.

The lockdown walls started to descend, although even in Mikel’s narrow-focused crisis mode he noted the alarms hadn’t sounded.

There were three lockdown walls in this hallway, and Mikel and Riana were right in between two of them. They descended more slowly than he’d feared, and he picked up his speed unconsciously as he assessed the distance left to cover.

Had he been alone, he could have made it. It would have been close but he could have had just enough time to slide under the last foot of free space before the descending wall—made out of some sort of clear security glass—reached the floor.

But he couldn’t get Riana through too. So he didn’t even try to slide under, and the force of their sprint made them collide painfully with the wall.

They were trapped.

“I’m sorry,” Riana rasped, her features twisting and her hair flying out everywhere. “I was too slow.”

He shook his head, brushing away her comment. “Just bad luck. Who is this guy?”

The alarm still wasn’t sounding. And the young man had walked over to the second lockdown wall that held them trapped, watching them and taking out a phone from his jacket pocket.

Something was off about this.

“Ghent. He works here. He used to like me but he’s gotten weird lately. I don’t know him very well, but I guess he knows I’m wanted by the government.”

Mikel frowned as he tried to figure out what was happening. More guards hadn’t come in from the lobby. No alarms. What was this guy up to?

When Ghent started to talk on the phone, Mikel strained his ears to hear. The wall muffled the sound, but Mikel had Soul-Breather senses, and he could pick up most of what was said.

“What’s going on?” Riana asked, looked frightened and bewildered. When Mikel put up a hand to quiet her, she whispered, “You can hear him?”

He nodded and concentrated hard, trying to see the man’s mouth move to verify what he was hearing.

“He hasn’t summoned the guards,” Mikel murmured, never turning away from the reddened face of the young man on the other side of the wall. “He’s called up someone else to get instructions on what do with us. He has his own agenda here.”

That could be to their advantage or disadvantage, depending on where Ghent’s allegiances lay and what would be done to them.

“Ghent? Really? He always seemed like such a rule-follower. Who could he be…” Riana trailed off as she waited to see what else Mikel could hear.

“They’re not to kill us,” Mikel said. “They’re to take us somewhere.”

“Well, that’s a relief.” Riana smoothed down her skirt and her hair and put on a determined expression. “What should we do?”

“I’m not sure yet. But when I tell you to run, you do it. No argument.” He pitched his voice as authoritative as he could. He might not be able to get both of them out of this mess, but he was committed to at least getting Riana out.

To his relief, she nodded.

Ghent snapped his phone shut, but he didn’t move to bring up the lockdown doors. He was taking a pretty big risk here, Mikel realized. Anyone could walk in and see what was happening—what Ghent had failed to report to Union security—or it might be spotted on one of the security cameras.

His agenda here was evidently more important than his job or his safety.

Another fanatic. Mikel was getting tired of them.

After one more minute, Mikel saw what Ghent was waiting for. Two other men came into the hall through the stairs and joined Ghent on the other side of the lockdown wall.

“They’re all working on the same side,” Mikel told Riana as he listened in on their conversation. “Not loyal to the Union but to something else. One of the men—the one with the red hair—wants to kill us, but they have strict instructions not to unless we’re about to escape.”

“So we shouldn’t try to escape?”

Mikel wished he knew.

All three of the men had guns drawn and leveled at them as the lockdown walls came up, but Mikel could tell they weren’t professionals. They were paper-pushers—they worked in the Archives here. And there were only three of them.