Frightened Boy

Chapter Nineteen, part two - Snakes

Two security guards had their guns ready, aimed at Whisper as a greeting. She fired her revolver through the folds of her cloak, hand covered completely by the giant sleeve. The guards fell before firing their weapons.

Tasumec Tower was still in full swing; everyone had arrived for the workday. I knew the standard operating procedure for the tower well. I’d spent years here. Workers would be told to stay in their offices, and the local out-of-shape security personnel would be in the hallways outside, posted on each floor. The elevators would be locked down, but I could override that.

I led Whisper and Erika to the service elevator and entered a separate code—a security master code I’d been issued—and we were granted access. Whisper steeped inside first; Erika and followed nervously. I punched the button that would lead us directly to the floor of the security center and to my old office. The fiftieth floor, in the heart of the building.

I shared glances with Erika as we shot up the center of the building. Whisper was statuesque; lips pressed tightly together, hands held out in front of her, gun readied beneath the cloak. .

A friendly ding let us know we’d arrived. The doors slid open to reveal an empty corridor; security would have been dispatched from here to the floors occupied by tenants. I led the way to my old office, where I’d sat for years and watched countless hours of footage, helping to coordinate security for the building.

A lump formed in my throat as I stood outside the old door to my office. Whisper shot through the lock and kicked it open. Inside, a man in his forties that didn’t look too much unlike me was cowering in his chair, his hands in the air.

“Don’t!” he shouted as Whisper shot him in the head. She dragged his body out through the hallway and into a nearby bathroom; a slick, thick swatch of blood tracked his progress.

Of all the death I’d seen since this started, somehow this death disturbed me most. My nameless replacement could have been me just as easily as it was him; he’d just met the wrong Stranger at the wrong time.

“You, get the elevators running to the top floor. Lock all the doors you can except the front entrance and tell me when Escher is in the lobby.”

I nodded, hands sweat-slicked and heart pounding. I stepped around the corpse at my work station, leaning over his body, careful not to get any of his blood on me.

“And you, girl,” Whisper said. “Where is the footage of Escher?”

“In that desk,” she said. “Behind the drawer. I put it there when Clark brought me to see his office one day.”

Escher appeared on the lobby monitor, with Mal and a dozen Strangers I couldn’t name. “Escher’s here,” I said. “In the lobby, moving to the elevator.”

Whisper ripped the shelf from the desk; the heavy aluminum tray flew back against the wall, narrowly missing Erika, who yelped and jumped back. The senior Stranger reached in, felt around, retrieved something. The hard drive.

“Good,” she said.

“So we’re good now? We know she’s not the spy?”

“How do you lock the front doors?” Whisper asked. I stared. “Now that Escher is inside. To keep him from getting flanked.”

“He’ll be trapped,” I warned.

“Just show me.”

I clicked through the tower’s security software. “This is it,” I told her. “You want me to do it?”

Her eyes narrowed. “Yes,” she said.

I pressed the button. When I turned back, I saw Erika’s eyes wide.