Vicarious (3 page)

“Shit.
It's freezing out.” Jesse hurries along the sidewalk.

I match my pace to his. “Explain to me why you couldn't drive again?”

“Because Gideon didn't want me to drive. Plus my car would probably break down at the worst moment.”

I can't argue. For one, I don't even have a car. Gideon says it's dangerous for me to drive because of the sedatives I sometimes take. Second, Gideon Seung is the smartest person I know. He left Korea to attend graduate school here in the United States, completing a neurobiology doctorate in just four years. In L.A., he worked as a research consultant. After we arrived in St. Louis, he cashed in his investments to buy our building and open Escape.

Two years ago, he began selling a new kind of gaming technology out of the club. Ever since a business website did a feature on the tech a couple months ago, multiple software companies have been trying to buy it from him.

My lips flatten when I think about how angry Gideon became when he saw the article. Somehow the reporter had gotten a picture of him and posted it along with the story. Gideon is very private. We all are. He says we must never tell anyone who we really are or where we came from. It's a little paranoid, if you ask me. Kyung Cho, the man Rose and I worked for in Los Angeles, was probably angry when Gideon took us away, but he wouldn't spend his time or money looking for us. He probably just sent his people out to find some replacements.

I shudder. The idea that gaining my freedom might have doomed another girl to my former life makes me ill. I push the thought into a dark corner of my mind and do my best to lock it away. I'll need all of my focus to be successful tonight.

Jesse and I pause a block from the Phantasm building. I look up at the giant logo, take a breath, and center myself. “Escape route?”

“I've got it figured out.” He touches my back lightly. “Just follow my lead, okay?”

Jesse and Gideon always do whatever it takes to assure that our work goes smoothly. I'm just stalling. Tonight is different from the jobs I've done before. We're not just committing some victimless crime—we're taking something from someone else.

It's a tangible threshold, a decision that might lead to harder ones. Gideon said I didn't have to do it if I didn't want to.

I want to.

I would do almost anything for him.

A figure in black exits the building and heads down the sidewalk away from us, a pair of handcuffs glinting under the streetlight.

“Security guards?” I ask.

“Two,” Jesse says. “We'll need to evade them.”

We cross the street in front of the Phantasm building and settle into the plastic shelter of a bus stop, just as the security guard turns around. Another burst of snow swirls down in front of us, the silvery droplets melting into the dark pavement. Jesse leans close and pretends to show me something on his phone. The guard's eyes flick toward us momentarily but then away. We're just two kids waiting for a late bus. I'm hoping one won't show up for at least a few minutes or it'll blow our cover.

The guard heads around to the back of the building and Jesse whips out a pair of mini binoculars. The lobby is empty except for a second security guard sitting at an information station in the center of the room. He's talking on the phone and flipping through a magazine. I can barely make out some sort of military tattoo on the back of his left hand. Jesse and I watch him for several minutes. He looks up only once.

Jesse reaches into his pocket and produces a key. Gideon bought our way into the building, but once we get inside we have to avoid the guards and gain access to the Phantasm offices on our own. Blood pulses through my veins, fear and excitement competing for my attention.

The guard finally drops the magazine and makes a big show of standing and stretching. He ambles toward the front of the building and checks each door to be sure it's locked before disappearing back into the depths of the lobby. Jesse peeks through the binoculars, expelling a series of slow, frosty breaths.

He turns to me and raises an eyebrow. We've worked together for the past few months—long enough that we can generally read each other's expressions. I nod sharply, my fingers curling into my pockets to feel for my headset and face mask, the pressure of my stun gun weighing comfortably against my abdomen.

Only the pale streetlight above our heads and a smattering of office lights in the nearby buildings dare to penetrate the icy dark. I slip on my headset as we both stand.

“You'd better make sure that thing is on tight,” Jesse says. “Just in case.”

I secure the headset tightly and then pull my mask on to obscure my face.

Jesse converts his hat to a face mask and slips it over his own headset. He grabs my hand as we dart across the street. Quickly, we use the key to enter the lobby. I hold the door behind me, slowly letting it fall closed so as not to make a sound. We skirt the periphery of the big open room to avoid the security camera that pans slowly back and forth. Pausing in an alcove outside the restrooms, we catch our breath and scan the area for the security guard. We're alone.

Jesse flicks his head in the direction of a conglomeration of steel cylinders and girders that's meant to be modern art. One at a time, we cross the lobby and duck low behind the sculpture. From here we can see the information station, the front doors, the escalators, and the hallway we know leads to a suite of Phantasm offices.

The company owns the first three floors of the building. We're looking for their server, which according to Gideon is in an office at the back of the second floor. Jesse and I creep onto the escalator and duck low, pressing our bodies tight against the metal so the guard won't see us heading up if he's coming down the other side.

My heart begins to race. I have no idea where the guard is. What if he sneaks up on us? I start to wonder why Gideon couldn't have paid a hacker to steal the information he needs from the safety of some darkened basement in another state.

We make it to the second floor unseen. The door to the suite has a numeric lock. Jesse sprays it with a luminescent powder. All of the numbers have been pressed at one point or another, but there are four that have been pressed a lot recently. 1-4-5-6. It takes him only a couple of tries to crack the code, and the door swings open.

Emergency lighting illuminates the office. A large wooden desk sits across from a waiting area built around an L-shaped fish tank. A framed picture hangs on the wall behind the aquarium. A bunch of men lined up in rows. Some sort of employee gathering.

“Come on.” Crouching low, Jesse creeps farther into the suite. We pass the sprawling reception area and a set of cubicles that makes up the bulk of the department. The fiberglass walls are covered with memos and notices, the worktables laden with piles of papers and framed photographs of loved ones. My eyes are drawn to a purse dangling from the back of one of the chairs. Designer. Leather. Probably full of cash and credit cards.

We're not here for cash or credit cards.

The stillness of the room ripples and I lunge for my left boot, a silver blade appearing in my hand. Dropping to a crouch, I rear back my arm, ready to throw. But it's just a heater that has clanked to life in a corner, the leaves of a potted plant fluttering in the artificial breeze. Exhaling hard, I swear under my breath. Beneath my mask, my skin is slick with sweat. Why couldn't Gideon have asked me to skydive blindfolded or walk across hot coals or something?

Jesse leads me into a room at the back of the suite. As my eyes adjust to the gloom, I see a pair of desks and a dark wall of electronic equipment stacked six feet high. Wires dangle from some of the stacks. I pause in front of a computer mounted on a pedestal. Gideon provided me with a flash drive he said would automatically run a program to circumvent the server's password protection and download the information he needed. I plug the drive into a USB port and hope for the best. The screen lights up, and a progress bar begins to fill as something called HWARANG.EXE launches itself.

Jesse is standing in the doorway keeping watch. “What's it doing?” he whispers.

“Accessing the root directories.”

“Tell it to hurry up.” He glances down the hallway again.

The program takes about thirty seconds to install and then the screen goes dark except for a command prompt. Lines of text begin to scroll upward as files are copied onto the drive. For about fifteen seconds everything seems to be working smoothly. Then the computer beeps twice and the screen freezes.

“Something happened,” I hiss. “I'm not sure if it's still copying.”

Jesse crosses the room in a few quick strides. He peers at the screen, but although both of us have a working knowledge of computers, neither one of us knows enough to troubleshoot the problem. Just when I think we're going to have to abort, the text begins to scroll upward again. “Won't these files be encrypted?” Jesse asks. He watches the screen with me.

“Probably. But that won't stop Gideon for long,” I murmur. “If he can't crack them, he'll just find someone else who can.”

As Jesse turns to head back to his post, a bank of lights blazes to life above our heads. I spin around. The security guard from the desk downstairs is standing in the doorway. He's just a vague, blurry form, because my brain is focused on the gun in his hand.

 

CHAPTER 4

“Against
the wall,” the guard says. “Both of you. Hands up.”

“Dude.” Jesse gestures toward the tattoo on the guy's hand and lifts his sleeve to display a similar marking. “Seven hundred and sixteenth battalion. This isn't what it looks like.” It's the old “Don't shoot me because we're the same” routine.

The guard isn't interested in brotherhood. “It looks like breaking and entering.” His eyes flick to the computer screen for a fraction of a second. “And then some.” He gestures with his gun. “Over there. Now.”

We shuffle over to the wall he's pointing at, our hands half-raised as we move. With his gun still pointed at us, the guard slowly backs up toward the computer. His right index finger is still on the trigger as his left hand reaches out for the flash drive.

Jesse and I exchange another glance that conveys paragraphs of information. He shakes his head—an almost imperceptible movement—and I know what it means:
Don't do anything rash.
But I'm closer to the security guard. I have a better chance to take him out.

As soon as the guard's fingers touch the drive, Jesse and I both drop low out of the gun's aim. I lunge forward, my arms encircling the guard's legs, my head slamming against his thigh. He crashes into the computer and we both end up on the floor. There is a deafening crack as the gun goes off. Jesse dives on top of the guard, pinning his hand against the floor. I grab the gun and leap back to my feet.

I have never touched a gun before. My fingers tread lightly, like it's a viper that might turn on me. Adrenaline surges through me like venom.

Jesse wrestles with the guard. They trade punches. I pull the flash drive from the computer and tuck it deep into my pocket. Turning, I aim the gun at the guard just as Jesse lands a skull-rattling hit to his jaw.

My finger dances on the trigger. My blood, my breath, everything about me burns with life. My hands tremble. I could end this guard with his own weapon. It would be easy, too easy.
Do it,
a little voice whispers from the darkest parts of my brain.

He starts to shake. “No. Please,” he says. “I have a wife, kids.”

With the gun still aimed, I reach into the pocket of my hoodie with my right hand and pull out my stun gun. I'm not here to kill anybody. Jesse and I just need to get out of the building without getting any holes punched in us. Electricity crackles as I shock the guard. Once. Twice. Three times, just to be safe. He convulses and then goes limp. He's still curled in the fetal position when Jesse and I hit the doorway.

“Give it to me.” Jesse points at the gun still in my hand.

I hand it over. We run full speed down the escalator, both of us vaulting over the bottom few steps. We head for the front of the building, the soles of our boots pounding like drums on the lobby's tile floor. I pull in front of Jesse as we reach the exit. My body feels lighter. Frost spews from my parted lips as the glass doors swing shut behind us. Too late, I see the gleam of white where the sidewalk meets the street. It's a flashlight—the other security guard.

He sees us and gives chase, screaming things that the night air distorts into meaningless syllables. Jesse and I turn and sprint past two blocks of office buildings. We cross into a small city park, veering off the paved walkway, trying to lose the guard in the trees. I hear the sound of snow crunching behind me. Swearing. Fabric rustling against branches. I push myself to go faster, weaving in and out of the foliage. Jesse and I run six-minute miles. This guy will never keep up with us.

The cold air stings my lungs as we fly past a playground and a set of cement restrooms. Sirens cut sharp lines of sound across the night. I can't tell if they're heading toward or away from us.

We exit the other side of the park, still running full-speed. We cut across the parking lot of a Mexican restaurant and then Jesse swerves left into an alley. Finally, we're heading back toward the Lofts. We hurdle trash bags and dodge rusted bicycles half-covered in snow. Behind us, the guard is swearing and grunting as he stumbles along. His voice fades as we pull away.

But the alley ends and there's more trouble out on the main street. A kaleidoscope of blue and red. Cops. Real ones. That was fast. I slow long enough to give Jesse a questioning look. Gideon has been known to buy off the police.

Jesse shakes his head. “We can't let them catch us.”

I bite down on my lower lip. I've never had a job go quite this wrong. Gideon is normally so meticulous about planning for every contingency. My breath catches in my throat. Darkness plays at the corners of my vision like I'm in danger of losing consciousness.
Focus, Winter.