Chapter 7
902 Words
7
I break into a run.
I’ve studied the city office blueprints of the Embassy Building, of course, paying special attention to the Butterfly Star floor. Blueprints don’t tell you that they painted everything except the floor this annoying eggshell off-white. My gray-green jumpsuit, dark hair, and green zebra face paint don’t buy me any stealth at all in here. A spangly-white disco outfit would hide me better.
I pass a door labeled RAT LAB and catch a faint animal whiff, then veer through the glass-walled kitchen. Someone’s left half a sheet cake on the counter, almost petrified after the long weekend, and the store-bought sweetness with a hint of rot fills the air. It takes me away from the computer room, but the limited information I have tells me that the perps are focused the computer room.
I need to come around the back way. Through the cubicle farm.
Scope out the opposition and figure out their plan.
Butterfly doesn’t give their administrative staff cubicles, though. It’s an open floor plan, long flat tables with an in-and-out box and a flat panel monitor on each, a cheap office chair pushed up hard against each table. Everything is exactly in its place. The fake pine smell is stronger here, with an underlying noxious whiff that twists my stomach. There’s no outside window. Most of the tables have one little bit of decoration, like a small framed photo or a tiny trophy. I bet if I found the employee handbook, I’d find a line starting with “Staff are permitted one small personal item, not to exceed four by six inches…”
I can imagine more dehumanizing office environments, but only without the Emancipation Proclamation. The Butterfly owners are not only greedy and selfish, they’re flat-out ruptured hemorrhoids.
Maybe the perps are a blowout team. Hired by the staff. That would be nice.
Once I get the data, that is.
I need to make a few adjustments to my gear. Stash the backpack. Get some eyes.
Distant running footsteps.
I drop to my knees. Loosen my pistol in its holster.
A raised voice, made indistinct by distance and architecture.
The footsteps recede.
I get to the edge of the office space, where a half-open door exposes a dark meeting room. I exchange some of the gear on my utility belt for items from the backpack’s bottom compartment. The last thing I take out is a tiny gas mask. I don’t care about the gas part, but I make my gear do triple duty whenever I can. And I was about to go straight into air thick enough to chew.
I stash the backpack inside a credenza. Then I’m on top of the credenza. I pop a two-foot-square fiberglass ceiling tile, grab the edge of the wall, and hoist myself into the overhead crawlspace.
Most of the walls inside modern office buildings don’t go all the way up. Restroom walls do, as well as some secure offices, but generally, they go up about six inches above the suspended ceiling, leaving a good three feet of dead space. Once I’m in there, I ease the ceiling tile back into its frame and push down the edges, sealing myself in darkness.
Here’s where I need the infra-red goggles. There’s all kinds of network and phone cable run everywhere, not to mention aluminum and steel structural supports running every which way. If you’re careful and balanced and use your brain you can crawl along the top of the walls. I don’t dare crawl quickly—I’m a little over six feet tall, remember? If I hurry, the weight will shake the wall under me and tell anyone with a brain precisely where I am.
It’s hot. It’s so filthy the wiring shaft looks pristine. I’m already sweating, and the sweat’s leaving tracks in the dust already sticking to my face.
But slow and steady, I can get through this whole building and nobody’ll know where I am or what I see. I can sneak in and rob these Butterfly bastards blind.
I’ve crawled about ten feet when my phone buzzes.
No, my phone doesn’t have a cocky ringtone. It vibrates. Always.
And no, I don’t answer it. Not while I’m balanced atop an eight-inch-thick aluminum strut meant to support drywall. Even if I wanted to, I’d have to lift up the mask to answer, which means I’d suck in a lung full of dust and dirt and probably little bits of that awful fiberglass thread they make ceiling tiles out of.
If someone’s calling to tell me I’m blown, they’ll leave a message.
So I ignore the intermittent buzz as I climb another few yards towards the computer room.
Butterfly doesn’t have one of these military-grade or life-sustaining datacenters, just a computer room with extra cooling and connections to a backup generator. The city plans claim it has a drop ceiling just like the rest of the office. I should be able to get eyes on the perps from there, see who I’m dealing with.
I wear this tiny remote unit on the inside of my left forearm. Some of my gear can feed information there. If I have my goggles set to night vision, it automatically cranks the contrast down to gray-on-black that’s clear as a Times Square billboard on Saturday night. If certain people send me a text message, it pops up there in minuscule letters.
It’s Rob Fender.
Crap.
I owe him.
And the text reads CALL ME ASAP.
My phone has an actual physical keyboard. I can’t type out long messages or anything, but I can flip the cover open, tap BUSY and hit Send, then flip the case shut.
I haven’t gone five more feet when Rob’s reply comes.
PERFORMING ATLANTA BUTTERFLY?
- Writer
