Sapphire Angel - Superheroine

Chapter 13 - Hesitation

Beth nibbled at her room service meal and leveled an accusatory stare at the time displayed on her phone. She couldn't believe only 24 hours had passed since she and John had left for the Halloween party. In that time, John had gotten sick and she had discovered amazing powers. Lives weren't supposed to change that much in one day. But hers had.

Stanley hadn't called yet with news on John, or with news on the evidence she recovered from Fizzure. Her mind raced with the possible reasons. John was probably dead. Or her infiltration of the Fizzure facility hadn't paid dividends. Or maybe Stanley had keeled over with a heart attack. The rational explanation was Stanley was still examining her findings, but the unknown raised too many dark spectres.

She unlocked her phone and stared at the mail icon. 13,287 unread messages. Those messages weren't a recent phenomenon, but had accumulated over the last few years. Perhaps it was time to declare bankruptcy and get a new email account.

With a resigned sigh and nothing else to do, she tapped the mail icon and scanned the most recent messages. Ann Taylor, Amazon, White House Black Market, Target, Lou & Grey. On and on the messages went, all junk mail from various online merchants. Two messages jumped out at her, though. Beth had interviewed a week earlier with two news sites and blogs, hoping to get a writing position after graduation.

She opened the messages, almost afraid to look. The second sentence of each message began the same way. "We have selected another candidate..." Beth returned the phone to the desk and closed her eyes.

Before she could lament the rejections, the phone rang and her eyes flew open. Stanley.

"How's Ethan?" she asked as soon as the phone reached her ear.

"He's stable. Not improving, but not getting worse. And they've ruled out bacterial meningitis, which was the one possible contagious thing he had. So at least he's out of the bubble they put him in."

Beth bit the side of her cheek and shook her head. Her naturally optomistic side tried to rise up, but she had a bad feeling about this.

"Any luck with Fizzure?" she asked.

"Nothing so far with the chemicals and other parts you photographed. Certainly nothing that might cause John's symptoms. I'll keep digging. And the USB drive you planted has only paid limited dividends so far."

"I thought you said you could gain access to their entire network if I planted that?" She fought back the irritation in her voice as she spoke.

Stanley didn't speak.

"I'm sorry, Stanley," she said with a guilty sigh. "This whole thing with John has me stressed out. I can only imagine what you're going through."

"That's okay. I understand, because I'm going through it, too. No need to apologize." His voice took on a soothing, fatherly tone as he spoke. Beth continued to listen.

"That computer controls access within the building. It's the nerve center for those swipe pads you saw at some of the doors. So the good news is that we can see who comes and goes, and where they go within the building. In theory we also should have unfettered access to move in and around the building."

"In theory?"

"I can see the traffic patterns in the system, which suggests the building is much more heavily guarded now. The patterns suggest guard patrols."

"If that's the good news, what's the bad news?"

"The computer's sole job was to control the door locks. It's segregated from the rest of their network. It's got no more access to their network than the laptop in your apartment."