The elevator's sleek stainless-steel doors slide closed, and a soft, recorded feminine voice sounds over the intercom. "Going up."
Trip hasn't told me exactly what we are doing in an apartment complex. Then again, we've barely spoken a word to one another this morning as it is.
The only scrap of information he's given me was when we were in the car, riding into the city with glass-walled buildings stretching taller and taller around us. Traffic grew worse and worse, along with Trip's road-rage, the further we burrowed into downtown. Eventually, I couldn't help but break the silence between us. I had to ask him, sullenly—still having not forgotten our spat last night—what it is he plans on doing. Does he plan on just waltzing into a Government Facility, requesting access to the Database? Does he plan on sending me in there?
All I'd gotten out of him was, "I know someone." Not only does that tell me nothing, it doesn't settle well with me either. Anyone Trip knows isn't someone I want to know.
The elevator gives a faint lurch as it begins to ascend. After a moment of watching the white numbers count up above us, I throw a quick glance in Trip's direction.
The little sleep he had must have done him good. When I woke this morning, my irritable personal furnace was no longer beside me. I found him sitting on the floor, under the window, pistol in hand, already showered, dressed, and ready to go. Apparently, at some point in time, he left while I was sleeping to buy new clothes for himself and coffee for the both of us. Yet despite waking so early and only having a few hours of sleep, he seems to be in a better mood. Of course, I don't think he's capable of being in a good mood. At least the dark circles under his eyes have faded, and he hasn't shoved the gun in my face today.
But.
The new dark blue, button-up, long-sleeved—though he's shoved the sleeves up his forearms—shirt he is wearing is just tight enough to show how tense he is. His anxiety kicked in the moment we stepped into the elevator.
"Floor fifteen," the female voice drones again.
The elevator stops, and the doors breeze open.
Trip steps out and leads me through the empty hallway, our footsteps scuffing over the soft carpet. My eyes flicker over every door, each number etched over a gold plate.
1524. This is the door Trip stops at. His eyes—that dark blue shirt somehow making them seem bluer—switch from the door to me. "You're going to knock," he says.
I stare at him. "What?"
As he moves to lean against the wall, Trip only gives me the same aggravated look I'm coming to know. The one that says, Do NOT make me repeat myself.
"Why?" I ask.
"He'll have the chain on the door, I'm sure."
"I mean why me?" Why doesn't Trip want to knock? Is he risking my life instead of his? Am I going to be shot or something?
He ignores my question. "Get him to take the chain off."
"How?"
"It doesn't matter. Make something up."
"What do you what me to say?"
Every second that passes, the aggravated look on Trip's face turns more and more into a glare.
"Just do it," he says. "Now."
I sigh, a little shakily. "Fine."
Sweeping my hair—which smells like the old, cheap soap I'd found at the motel this morning—over my shoulder, I lift my chin and step closer to the door. My knuckles rap on the wood. Three times.
We wait.
A good thirty seconds passes, and nothing happens. I raise my eyebrows at Trip, who motions for me to knock again. My knuckles have barely brushed the wood of the door when suddenly it's snatched open. Just a sliver. Behind a pair of thick lenses, two eyes peer out from inside the apartment. As Trip had predicted, the chain is intact, hanging loosely in the little space the guy allows the door to be open.
"Who are you?" Glasses demands.
I'm not sure what to say. So, I force a smile and stammer a, "Hi."
The guy, his body hidden by the door as if he's using it as a shield, opens it a little more. "What do you want? Whatever you're selling, I don't want it."
"I'm not selling anything. I just... um... I was just wondering..." I pause, trying to think up a lie, and quick. In my periphery, I see Trip roll his eyes to the ceiling. "—if you could... help me move something."
Yes.
That's pretty good.
I gesture aimlessly down the hall. "I just moved in. And I have this enormous dresser sitting in my living room. I've tried pushing it, but it won't budge. And the movers left. And it's so heavy. I was hoping you could help me move it into my room."
The guy behind the door blinks at me.
And so does Trip—in surprise.
I'd be blinking at myself too right now if I could. I came up with that one pretty quick.
"Oh." Glasses pauses and nods slightly. "Yeah, yeah. Okay. I'll help you." He steps back, and I hear the clattering of the chain being pulled off the door.
Trip doesn't waste any time. Jerking to the side, he slams a palm into the wood of the door, sending Glasses staggering back, arms flailing. In two seconds Trip is in the room, ramming his pistol in the guy's face. Stifling a gasp, I stumble into the room behind Trip. He orders me to shut the door. Dazed, I obey.
Glasses has thrown his hands in the air. They're shaking. His eyes, glued to Trip, bulge behind his lenses like he is staring at the devil himself. "Oh God. It's you."
"Did you miss me, Dax?"
"Oh God. Oh dear God." Dax closes his eyes.
With his gun still trained on the guy's face, Trip glances at me over his shoulder. "Check the rooms."
I nod, distantly, and step around him to cross the living room, pass a kitchen, and head for a hallway.
Four doors. Each one I open with bated breath. One is a bland-looking bedroom. Much like the rest of the apartment, there are no decorations. Just walls and furniture.
Another is a bathroom.
Another—a linen closet.
The last door leads to a mostly bare room. Other than a computer desk, littered with old soda cans and empty Chinese food boxes, and five monitors all glowing with screensavers of lights and helixes, the room is empty.
No one else is here.
I return to the living room to find Dax sitting, slumped on the only couch in the room, repeating, "Shit... shit... shit."
Pistol lowered at his side, Trip stands in front of him. His eyes lift and question me silently.
I shake my head. "No one."
Dax turns to frown at me. "Who is she?" Clearly, by the look on his face, he feels betrayed by the innocent girl who only needed help moving a dresser. Guilt pricks me. Though I was unwilling and unknowing, I was an accomplice in this. I've subjected Glasses to Trip's coldness, something I wouldn't wish upon even my worst enemies.
"I'm Evette," I say, offering a small smile—a small apology.
The threatening look Trip shoots at me wipes the smile off my face. He takes a step closer to Dax. And instantly Dax tenses. His eyes dart to the gun in Trip's hand.
"What do you know?" Trip asks, his icy gaze turning on Glasses.
"I don't... I don't know much. Only what they told me."
"And what is that?"
"It's been three days, and you haven't shown up yet. They had their suspicions. They sent Ralston... something about a hospital. I don't know."
Trip lowers his eyes to the floor. I can see the gears turning in his mind again. He's thinking. Deliberating.
Dax must see it too. He stares up at Trip, his hands still shaking even though they're resting on his knees. "So it's true then? You're not going back?"
Trip doesn't answer. He digs out a cell phone from his pocket, and with further inspection, I realize it's my cell phone—the one he took from me when he first kidnapped me. "That's my—" I start, but Trip cuts me off with another glare. I clamp my mouth shut.
"How long will it take for you to block the trace on this?" he asks, handing it over to Dax.
Dax takes it, cautiously, and arches an eyebrow as he looks over my cell phone. It's in several pieces. "A couple of hours," he says, and then his eyes shift back to Trip. "What else do you want? This can't be it."
"I need to get into Government Database," Trip says. Right to business. Straightforward. Clear-cut.
At first, Dax just stares at Trip, blankly, as if he didn't hear him or doesn't understand. But, slowly, it must start to sink in. Dax's eyes start to grow even wider behind his glasses. "No. Oh God, no." He starts to jitter—hand rubbing over his face, knees bouncing up and down uncontrollably. "Please. Don't do this to me. Don't drag me into this. I don't want to be dragged into this."
"You don't have a choice."
"I can't. I can't help you. If I help you, they'll come after me and—"
"I said— " Trip takes another step closer so he towers over Glasses "—you don't have a choice." He has no patience for persuasion. To get what he wants promptly, he intimidates. And it works.
Dax quivers under Trip's glare. "Why? What are you after?"
"My file."
"What about Emulation Database? Your file may be there. It's a lot easier to get you into—"
"It's not there." Trip shakes his head. "That's the first thing I tried."
For a moment, Dax only rubs his hand back and forth across his forehead, deep in frantic thought. When he finally speaks again, his tone is dragging, miserable. "I'm going to die. They're going to kill me." He looks at Trip. "And you too. They're going to come after you, and they aren't going to stop until you're caught or dead."
Trip pays no attention to that remark. He's even looking away now, looking almost bored. With his pistol, he gestures towards the hallway. "I need that phone's trace blocked. Go start."
Dax just stares at him.
It takes a second for Trip's gaze to fall back to Glasses, but when it does and when he realizes the guy hasn't moved an inch, Trip sighs. He raises his gun, aiming it right between Dax's eyes.
"Now."
Dax stares cross-eyed into the barrel, head bobbing up and down. "Okay. Okay." He stumbles to his feet, backing away from Trip, lurching over the edge of the couch. Luckily he catches himself before he can fall flat on his face.
I watch him stagger down the hall, and once he's disappeared into the computer room, my gaze turns to Trip. "Why do you need to use my cell phone?"
Trip is staring at the floor again, looking like his mind is going a hundred miles an hour, every muscle tense. "I have a call to make"—then with a snide glance—"of course."