Chapter 14
Eames and I stand in the darkened hallway of the third floor. The door to Nonna’s apartment is firmly locked.
“What’s the plan?”
“First things first,” I say. “Edgar?”
Under normal circumstances, I wouldn’t reveal him. But today has been anything but normal.
Edgar buzzes down from where he was sitting on the ceiling. He alights on my hand.
Eames takes half a step back. “I’m allergic.”
I tuck that bit of knowledge away, in case I ever need it. “You’re fine. It’s not a real bee.” I take Edgar on my fingers and hold him out. “This is Edgar.”
Eames frowns, a trace of confusion touching his face. He steps closer, peering down at Edgar.
Edgar raises one tiny leg and waves.
“What…?”
“Spybot,” I say, with a shrug. Then I hold out my hand.
“You have a spybot that looks like a bumblebee?” asks Eames. “Where did you get it?”
“I am not an ‘it,’” says Edgar in my ear. “I am a he. And I’m far more important to this mission than you.”
I snort. “Not your best comeback, Edgar, but good effort.”
“Why is he even here?” asks Edgar, wings fluttering indignantly. “We don’t need him.”
“We kinda do need him,” I say. “So far we’ve been surviving on luck and scrappiness. But until I upgrade your stinger with poisonous darts, you’re kind of useless in a fight.”
Edgar flies into the air. “I would accept such an upgrade.”
“Oh, no,” I say, waving him off. “I am not going to be the instigator of the robot apocalypse so easily.”
Eames looks from the bumblebee to me. “Are you … talking to it?”
“Old habit,” I lie. Better to let him think that Edgar is running some advanced VA software instead of actually being a working, sentient AI.
Eames straightens his shoulders, takes a breath, and meets my eyes. “All right. How do we do this?”
I give myself a moment to compose an answer. “We need communications. That should be our first priority.”
“Why?” asks Eames. “Even if we can call out, what good is that going to do?”
I sigh. “If we can take down the jammers, then there’s a chance the feds could remotely hack into the building mainframe and regain control of it. I don’t know if they can do it—but we have to give them a chance.”
“Because if they take away the fire-suppression system,” says Eames, “then the terrorists don’t have hostages anymore. I mean, they’ll still have guns, but they can’t kill everyone with the push of a button.”
“Exactly.” I nod. “As for the jammers, I’m going to assume there are probably two on each floor.
Their tech expert is a woman called Carla—she’s about six inches taller than me, braided hair, and looks like she could kick some ass.
I don’t know if she’s armed but I’m going to guess most of them are. We should—”
At that moment, a crackle of static makes us all jump. Even Edgar flinches higher into the air.
My hand falls to my pocket, pulling out the radio on instinct alone.
A grumble of feedback echoes through the cheap speaker.
“First floor clear,” says an unfamiliar voice.
It’s a deep baritone growl. “Starting sweep of second. Has anyone heard from Bud? Asshole was supposed to help us once he finished with the security office.”
A few seconds pass, and then a second voice chimes in. A lighter female voice—pleasant, but with the rasp of a longtime vaper. “Anasova was with him last. Ask her.” That must be Carla herself.
Another moment of quiet as the radio switches back to the first speaker. That baritone grumbles, “Anasova, do you copy?”
Silence.
“Anasova?”
And then a chillingly familiar voice comes through the radio.
“Someone get up to the roof and check on Anasova,” says Hannah Vale.
I swallow hard, my mouth suddenly dry.
“Well, crap,” I whisper.
“What?” asks Eames quietly. His face is grave.
“I stole these two radios so far,” I say. “From Bud and Anasova. I, uh, already dealt with them. It was only a matter of time until the others noticed. I tied up Bud and left him in the security office and went up to find Anasova on the roof.”
Eames seems to grasp the situation at once. “The others must know something is wrong,” he says. “Or they will very soon.”
I grimace. “Yeah.”
Up until this moment, I’ve had the advantage of going unnoticed. Once Vale realizes that her crew is being hunted, she may take … more drastic actions.
“Okay,” I whisper, mostly to myself. “Okay.”
This isn’t great, but I still have an advantage. They don’t know who I am; they don’t know where I am; they don’t know what I can do. If they’re smart—and I know they are—they’re going to have to treat me like I’m a deadly threat.
“They’re going to have to call off the search to find me,” I say. “Once they figure out that someone is taking them out.”
Which is good. If they’re looking for me, they’re not looking for Project Persephone. I flick my fingers, activating my ringware. I have a recording function in my visor, and I think I’ll want a record of what I’m going to do next.
Eames shifts on his feet, as though he yearns to move. “So what does that mean for us?”
“I believe,” I say, holding up the radio I stole from Bud, “it’s time to introduce myself.”