Paradise Made

Nineteen: Infiltration

 I don't know why I decided on up. Maybe it was the fact that they were angels, and it felt like the right thing to do. In the elevator, I hit the button for the thirty-eighth floor, the highest that could be accessed without unlocking anything.

When the doors slid open I was surprised and a little underwhelmed. I was unsure what I'd been expecting but it definitely hadn't been this. It was just an ordinary office bullpen. Floor to ceiling windows covered every wall, giving a fantastic view of the city below. Less than half of the desks were occupied, and those that were, seated people dressed like the agents, who had not yet noticed my arrival. They did strikingly mundane things. They typed on their computers, or talked on the phone, or filled out paperwork.

For a fleeting moment I felt as if I'd been the subject of an elaborate prank, and that I was just infiltrating an ordinary office building. Not wanting to be seen, I turned away from the bullpen, heading down a hallway, not unlike the one many floors below. I wondered what was going on in the meeting. If I knew IRIN they would be imparting nothing of use. I could imagine how angry June would get, and how Lily—always professional—would have to calm her down. I hoped, more than anything, that my actions would not reflect back on them.

I reached a fork in the hallway and I was about to choose randomly when I heard voices coming around a corner. Instead of going the other way, like any sensible person would, I crept towards them. Out of view, I listened. They didn't sound like they were moving, and I made sure to stay out of sight.

“When are they guys from Jerusalem getting here?” one of them asked.

“Should be soon,” the other answered. “Tomorrow if everything goes to plan.”

“It can't come sooner. You'll see in the report, but I've been monitoring the black and Sumar has never been so dense with it. It's crawling with them. I don't want to say this, but I wouldn't even feel comfortable doing a patrol.”

“Come on...”

“No, seriously, we haven't been this outnumbered in a long time.”

“If it's really that bad then I wouldn't be slacking on turning in that report.” The voice of the second angels was teasing.

There was a sigh, then footsteps. I had to resist the urge to run. Just a quick walk—not suspicious. The trick was to look like I belonged here. Thankfully, the pare did not follow me down the fork, instead heading on to the bullpen. That had been close one. If I hadn't known the opposite to be true I would have said that God loved me.

This hallway ended in a set of stairs. Much to my delight, they appeared to go up as well as down. Sliding into the stairwell, I climbed. One floor up I decided to try the door. It was locked, and I screamed quietly in frustration. The stairs only went up one more level, and that door—sleek and metal with no window—was locked as well. In defeat, I headed back down to the thirty-eighth floor.

My hand was on the handle when three agents rounded the corner into view. I watched them through the window, breath catching in my throat. One of them had gone into an office but the other two hovered outside, talking.

I headed down another level. The hallway here looked a lot like the one above it, but a little different. Most importantly though, it was empty. Shoving the door open, I was glad that it hadn't been locked, only to have the happiness cut short by a blaring alarm. Panic gripped me, and I debated to running back into the stairway, but instead I headed down the hall.