Amped: A Kid Sensation Companion Novel (5 page)

“I hate to point out the obvious,” Smokey said, “but you do realize that what you’re talking about is illegal?”

He had joined me and Li in the latter’s room, following a phone call that I had made to him a short time earlier. In essence, we needed him if we were going to get the hospital records from Locke Infinite.

“I mean, this is breaking and entering,” Smokey went on, “not to mention a dozen other crimes.”

“So what?” I said. “It wouldn’t be the first time we broke into a place.”

“That was completely different and you know it,” Smokey retorted. “That was a rescue operation.”

What Smokey and I were referring to was a break-in of a government facility that we – along with Jim – had orchestrated a few months back, the purpose of which had been to extract some kids being held against their will.

“There were people being illegally detained – basically imprisoned,” Smokey continued. “Breaking into that place was morally justifiable.”

“Should I be hearing this?” Li asked softly.

“What you’re talking about now,” Smokey said, ignoring our android friend, “is burglarizing an organization that, as far as we know, hasn’t done anything wrong.”

He had a point. We had a legitimate basis for the “criminal” activities we’d engaged in before. I’m not sure it was possible to defend my current plan of action, but I had to try.

“Look,” I said, “to the best of our knowledge, my biological mother’s medical records are at Locke Infinite. Moreover, based on the circumstances under which I was found, she’s probably dead. In the ordinary course of events – if we’d had a normal mother/daughter relationship – I’d be entitled to those records. As it is, with the little evidence we’ve got, I’ll
never
be able to prove a legal right to them. That means I’ll never be able to see them. And truth be told, I
should
be able to review them – to see if women in my family have a history of cervical cancer, or heart disease, high blood pressure, whatever! But since I can’t prove a right to them, the only way I’m
ever
going to see them is by taking them, whether it’s today, tomorrow, or ten years down the road! So while breaking into Locke Infinite may not be legal, morally it’s the right thing to do.”

Li and Smokey just stared at me. I hadn’t meant to climb up on my soapbox, but it had taken me my entire life to get this far on this particular journey, and nothing was going to stop me from crossing the finish line.

I decided to extend an additional olive branch. “If it makes your decision any easier, we plan to put the records back when we’re done. They’ll never know anything was ever missing.”

“Alright,” Smokey finally said with a nod. “We go in.”

I hate lying to Esper. Not just because she’s essentially my mother, but because – since she’s telepathic – it always feels like she knows when I’m not being sincere. That being the case, I typically try to cloak my fibs in some semblance of the truth.

On this particular occasion, after Smokey was finally on board with Operation Locke Infinite, I called to tell her I’d be hanging out with friends (which was technically true) and would be home later.

Her response was to ask, “Have you done any homework or studying at all this weekend?”

“I’m ahead in all my classes,” I reminded her. “Plus, you know what they say about all work and no play…”

“Alright,” Esper said, giving in. “But don’t stay out too late.”

I agreed to come in at a reasonable hour and then got off the phone. I turned to Smokey and Li. “Okay, let’s do this.”

*****

According to Murphy’s Law, anything that can go wrong, will go wrong. With respect to breaking into Locke Infinite, however, the opposite of Murphy’s Law – Yhprum’s Law (“Yhprum” is just “Murphy” spelled backwards) – seemed to apply: Everything that can work, will work. Basically, it was the smoothest operation I had ever been part of.

First of all, Smokey – who is excellent at procurement – was able to get us some stealth suits. These were essentially form-fitting bodysuits with face-hugging hoods, gloves, and goggles. They were made of a synthetic material that would, among other things, hide body heat and absorb sound waves – making us invisible to things like thermal imagery, radar, and sonar – as well as confound motion detectors. (They were also pretty good at keeping out the cold.) After donning the stealth suits and putting our regular clothes on top of them (so as not to arouse suspicion should anyone see us), we left HQ in my car and headed towards Locke Infinite.

It was early evening when we got near our destination, but already dark – the result of the shorter winter days. The Locke Infinite facility was a large, multi-story building located on what was – in summer – a flat, grassy plain for the most part, with only a few groves of trees here and there. At the moment, however, the expansive grounds surrounding the structure were covered with snow.

We ended up parking at a strip mall about a mile away. Once out of the car, I gave a thumbs-up to Smokey, who nodded in return. A moment later, dense fog began to fill the area – the result of Smokey providing us with his namesake smokescreen. (And for one of the few times in recent memory, Smokey kept his human form while creating the mist that wrapped around us.) Once we were safely obscured by it, we began to move out.

Able to see almost nothing, I put on my goggles (which were equipped with various features, such as night vision and infrared) as we strode towards our destination. With them on, the fog was far less of a hindrance to my vision. Smokey didn’t seem to have any problem navigating through the fog he had created; likewise, Li hadn’t donned his goggles either. (That said, I wasn’t sure that Li, being an android, could actually “see” in the same sense that biological creatures could.)

Walking briskly, it took us about twenty minutes to reach the Locke Infinite facility. (We took only one detour en route: stopping to strip out of our exterior clothes and placing them under a tree in a garment bag that Smokey had brought along for that purpose.) Thankfully, the facility wasn’t gated and there were no exterior patrols – facts that Li’s online research had intimated and which we were happy to confirm. There were, however, very bright external lights and exterior cameras, but to anyone looking at an image from them, it should have only appeared that a dense fog was rolling in. That being the case, we didn’t have any trouble getting close to the building.

As a result of a little hacking, Li had also been able to pull up schematics and blueprints of the Locke Infinite site. After reviewing them, we had decided that an emergency exit at the back of the building was our best point of entry, and that’s where our approach led us.

“Okay, Electra,” Smokey whispered, pointing at the door. “You’re up.”

I stepped forward. According to the schematics, the door was secured by a magnetic lock. Looking at it, I knew that I could easily disrupt the power to the door; moreover, because it was a failsafe design, the loss of power would cause it to unlock. However, I also knew that there was a security area with guards sitting at a monitoring station, and – once the door was unlocked and we stepped inside – the security system would indicate that a door had been opened. In short, I couldn’t obstruct just the power to the door; I had to disrupt the entire building’s power supply.

I laid a hand on the door, then reached out with my power. I could sense electricity flowing, powering the lock. I followed it back, through coils, couplings, wiring, the breaker box…

When I reached the requisite point, I sent out a powerful pulse of electricity. The exterior lights flickered for a moment and then winked out, as did the cameras. The area became pitch black, causing Smokey to put on his goggles. Li, on the other hand, didn’t bother.

“Let’s go,” I said, opening the door. (It occurred to me then – not for the first time – that I would have made a great cat burglar, and the thought made me smile.)

From that point, it was even more of a cakewalk. We dashed inside and headed for the vault area. According to Li’s research, we had about half an hour before the power came back on, courtesy of a back-up generator. In the meantime, the guards on duty would probably be patrolling the place.

We managed to reach the vault door undetected. To our great relief, it was on the same power grid as the rest of the place, so its security features weren’t active. Unlike the door we had come in, however, which had contained a fail
safe
magnetic lock, this one was a fail
secure
model. In other words, even with the loss of power, it would stay locked (as Li had previously noted). Above the door, however was an air vent.

Smokey didn’t waste any time. One second, he was there; the next, his stealth suit dropped to the floor, empty, as a mist floated up and entered the vent. Scant seconds later, the door opened and vapor came streaming out; it headed towards Smokey’s stealth suit, which seemed to inflate like a balloon as the mist took on human form and solidified.

Inside, the vault appeared somewhat akin to a small warehouse. There were row upon row of what looked like large, horizontal filing cabinets stretching across an area of about ten thousand square feet. The cabinets were about eight feet tall, and each had a side-to-side opening for retrieving files at about the five-foot mark. In addition, not far from us was a series of computer monitors and keyboards. Also close on hand was an elevator (obviously not working at the moment) and the entrance to an interior stairwell.

“It’s somewhere in here?” Smokey asked, gesturing towards the filing cabinets. At this point, I suddenly realized that we hadn’t filled Smokey in on all the details of the plan. In fact, we had made it seem like little more than a smash-and-grab. The reality, however, was a little more complicated.

“The records we seek are somewhere in the vault, yes,” Li answered, as he stepped towards the filing cabinets. “The vault, however, extends about ten stories underground, with some of the subterranean floors being much more expansive than this one.” Almost at random, he began pulling out documents from various cabinets and examining them.

Even with the goggles on, I could still see the look of incredulity on Smokey’s face. “How are we supposed to find what we’re looking for?” he asked.

“Ordinarily you’d use one of the computers,” I said, tilting my chin towards one of the monitors. “It would tell you where to locate whatever you’re trying to find.”

Smokey seem slightly relieved. “So, you’re going to juice one up?”

I shook my head. “Can’t. They log every search automatically. The whole point of this is that we don’t want anyone to know that we’ve been here or that anything’s missing.”

“Then how do we find these records you want in what’s essentially a filing cabinet the size of a ten-story building?”

“Somewhat easily, we hope,” answered Li as he put a folder of documents back into the cabinet he’d gotten it from. “Filing systems are typically arranged in either one of a few basic ways – alphabetically, numerically, by date, and so on. After examining several of the files here, and the relative aspects and factors, I have developed a rudimentary algorithm which I believe expresses the system of storage used by Locke Infinite.”

“So in other words, you know where to find the docs we want,” Smokey concluded.

“More or less,” Li answered. “If I understand everything correctly, they should be in a filing cabinet two levels down.”

With that information, we hustled over to the stairwell and down to the appropriate floor. Once there, Li disappeared into the stacks of filing cabinets, while Smokey and I stood guard by the door, although it was a little unclear what we would do if anyone actually showed up. Fortunately, no one did – although we had a quick scare shortly after we arrived when I sensed someone approaching. A moment later, we heard voices in the stairwell and the illumination from a flashlight shined briefly around the edges of the door. To our great relief, no one came in, although we scrambled to find a hiding spot behind one of the filing cabinets.

“Thanks for the heads-up,” Smokey whispered after whoever was in the stairwell had moved on. “Good thing they didn’t come in here.”

“They’re not likely to,” I said in response. “The majority of the stuff where we are is just paperwork for the most part. The most valuable stuff is on the lowest level, so a good chunk of the building’s security is probably going to be focused there, even if they aren’t suspicious of anything.”

“Makes sense,” Smokey said, nodding in understanding as we stepped out of our hiding place. A few moments later, Li reappeared.

“Electra,” he said. “I require your assistance.”

He turned without another word, and Smokey and I began following him through the maze-like arrangement of filing cabinets. After about a minute, Li came to a halt in front of one of them.

“The records we want are in here,” he said, pointing at the horizontal opening.

Smokey shrugged his shoulders. “So what’s the problem?”

“These filing cabinets operate on a carousel,” Li explained. “Albeit one that moves vertically. This line of visible records” – he pointed to the files lining the horizontal opening – “are only a single shelf within the cabinet.”

“I take it the records we want are on a
different
shelf,” I concluded.

Li nodded. “Exactly, but with the power off, there’s no way to get to it short of tearing the cabinet apart.”

“So you need Electra to do her thing,” Smokey surmised.

I didn’t need an invitation. The second it became clear what Li was requesting, I stepped forward and put a hand on the filing cabinet.

“Stand back,” I said to my friends. “And don’t touch anything.”

I closed my eyes for a second and concentrated; doing stuff like this required a certain amount of focus. I first exuded a small discharge – sort of like feelers – to help me identify the location of wiring and such in the cabinet. From there, it was a matter of following the wiring back to the item that I was looking for, which in this case was the motor that operated the carousel.

This is where things could get a little tricky. I had to then feed the motor enough juice to make the carousel function, but avoid sending through too much and possibly burning it out. Fortunately, the feelers I’d sent out provided an indication of the carrying capacity of the wiring, which in turn gave me an idea of how much electricity to send to the motor.

In short, within perhaps thirty seconds, I had the carousel operational. Then, after taking a few moments to ensure that my power wasn’t coursing throughout the entire cabinet (and therefore unlikely to electrocute anyone), I opened my eyes and said, “Try it now.”

Li pressed a button on the front of the cabinet, and from its interior came the muffled sounds of some type of machinery in operation. More to the point, the filing shelf that was visible in the horizontal opening began to rotate down, to be replaced by another shelf that had been above it. Smiling, Smokey gave me a thumbs-up signal.

I tried to return Smokey’s grin, but the noise made by the cabinet as the shelves rotated set me on edge. Although in reality I knew that the internal machinery wasn’t particularly loud, the sound seemed deafening to me in the tomb-like quiet of the room we were in. To my great relief, Li quickly brought the carousel to a halt. Removing a box from the current shelf, he reached into it and pulled out a clear circular case that seemed to contain something like a reel of film tape.

“We can go now,” Li announced as he put the box back on the shelf. “I have the necessary information.”

“Where is it?” I asked.

Li simply held up the item he had retrieved from the box.

“What is that?” asked Smokey.

“Data storage tape,” Li replied.

I frowned, a little confused. “I thought we were after
documents
.”

“If you are referring to
printed
documents,” Li said, “there are reams of them here, covering thousands of patients. We simply do not have the time to sit here and sift through them all in order to identify the relevant records that mesh with our search parameters. Moreover, unless our plan also includes commandeering a forklift, none of us seemingly came prepared to leave the premises hauling several banker boxes’ worth of material. However, everything we came here for is stored on this tape.” He held up the case he was carrying for emphasis.

“Alright, I get it,” I said. “Now let’s get out of here.”

Ten minutes later, we were dashing back across snow-covered ground, covered once again by Smokey’s fog as we headed towards the tree where we’d hidden our clothes. As we were putting them on over our stealth suits, we noticed the lights come back on at Locke Infinite, indicating that power had been restored.

All three of us stopped getting dressed and listened for a moment, clearly worried about the same thing. To my great relief, we heard nothing: no alarms, no klaxons, no sirens. Apparently our little raid had gone undetected. Still surprised at how smoothly everything had gone, we finished getting dressed and got the hell out of Dodge.