Anarchy of the Mice

Chapter Twenty-Two

Piper said, "All that glass. All that shiny steel."

"Yeah." I felt like I should say something appropriate to the mission, whatever it might be. "All that money. Executives with secretaries and big bonuses."

"For real. But it's coming around." Piper led us inside, her jaw set.

I thought about those secretaries. About all the moms and uncles and brother-in-laws who worked here too.

The lobby was immaculate, a cathedral of marble and brass. A chandelier spiraled from the ceiling, a procession of gleaming crystal rectangles each offset a few degrees from the one before. The reception desk ribboned before the elevators in a luxurious sine-wave shape, manned by six receptionists with Nordic features.

Piper approached the station designated Visitors/Delivery. The receptionist eyed Piper's tablet.

"All devices must go through screening," he said.

"Naturally."

"Do you have any other electronics on your person?"

Piper slicked the counter with her pinkie, seeming to weigh answers. "I—well yeah, just a thumb drive."

The statuesque blond made a give-it-here motion. "It'll have to go too."

Piper reached into a inner pocket of her uniform but left her hand there. I could sense her reluctance to part with the object. Which frightened me. As cool customers went, you didn't get much cooler than Piper Jackson.

What if it was a bomb? Or the trigger for a bomb? Maybe it had some trace residues she didn't want analyzed.

Finally she slipped out a silver, oval-shaped object. It was the size of a plastic egg, the kind I've filled hundreds of times with Hershey kisses and easter grass.

Piper pulled it apart to show the USB plug, her face bored. Back to cool.

The receptionist took the thumb drive(?) and Piper's tablet, and walked both to a screening table. A woman carrying a square cloth and wearing baggies over her shoes received the items. She swabbed the cloth over both sides and all four edges of the tablet, then thoroughly about the thumb drive—inside and out—before placing it in a notched opening of a machine.

She depressed a button. A red plane of light passed left-to-right over the cloth, then back right-to-left.

I stopped breathing. The machine emitted a faint bee-bloop-bee sound.

Five seconds later, an indicator across its top shone green.

The woman walked the items to the receptionist, who handed them over the counter to Piper. "All set. Now who're you here for?"

Piper tucked the thumb drive securely back into her inner pocket. "eDeed International Solutions."

The receptionist tapped a few keystrokes at his terminal.

"eDeed International Solutions," he read off the screen, "88th floor. Elevator group C, smack-dab in the middle."

Piper thanked him, me smiling along like a dope, and we pushed through a metal turnstile to the bank of elevators. We boarded a packed car, wingtips crammed heel-to-toe. Drawing on my temp experience, I avoided awkwardness by watching the Captivate screen over the floor indicator, weather and cutesy facts. Piper, though, shuffled in place and kept squeezing her eyes. It reminded me just how young she was—and how possibly insane it was to be placing my fate in her hands.

At Eighty-Eight, we disembarked. The eDeed switchboard operator held a finger in our direction, finishing a call. Again Piper seemed ill at ease, fidgety.