The Nexus Series: Books 1-3 (25 page)

“I volunteer,”
she said almost before he’d finished his word of caution.

Holiday
sighed.  “Of course you do.”

11

THE
citizens had voted for rain tonight, and the Anterran Climate Control Center
had obliged.  Drops from the artificially generated clouds sparkled as
they fell past the lanterns lining the
walks
of
Durnham
Park.

Jill crossed the
lawn south of the conservatory, dodging the lamplight as well as
possible.  She felt strange—strange not being in uniform, strange being
alone for the job, strange not being in communication with HQ or any other
agents.  Her only link to the rest of her team was a tiny alarm trigger
fixed to her tooth.  It was almost like her errander days.  In just a
few short weeks at the department, she’d almost forgotten the feeling.

Almost.

She approached
the door leading into the alpine mountain display.  There was a keypad on
the frame.  It had taken Dizzie about thirty seconds that afternoon to
hack into the security system and find the four-digit code.  Jill punched
it in now.  The door clicked open.

She took a pair
of glasses out of her pocket and slipped them on.  The details of the dark
room brightened.  Jill nodded a greeting to the stuffed mother bear. 
She ignored all conventional wisdom and went between the mother and her
cubs.  On the needle-covered forest floor behind them, a trapdoor led to a
small storage area beneath the display.

The storage area
was much darker than the room above.  Jill’s infrared glasses adjusted automatically. 
The small space was lined with shelves holding nothing of interest.

She moved on.

A thorough search
of the kids’ educational room turned up nothing.  Same thing in the orchid
room.

Next Jill arrived
to the office area.  To one side various flowers and shrubs were on
display.  To the other side short passages led to wooden doors marked with
conservatory staff member’s names.

She decided to
check Doreen Maybury’s office first.  A basic lock-pick did the
trick.  It was a simple room with a desk and a few chairs.  Photos of
various flowers appropriately adorned the walls.  No secret compartments
filled with weapons.  No closets or storage spaces.  No suspicious
packages.

She checked a few
of the other offices.  Still nothing.

Then she noticed
one of the doors had no nameplate.  The office behind this door was just
like any other, though it appeared largely unused.

Jill took a look
around.

She hadn’t seen
it at first, but she noticed it on her second inspection of the room—a metal
plate with a small handle.  It was mostly hidden by the spreading branches
of a large potted plant.

She slid the
plant out of the way and inspected more closely.  The metal plate was
hinged at the bottom; when she pulled the handle it swiveled open a few inches
like a mail slot.  The opening would allow a fairly good-sized package to
be deposited.

Jill leaned close
and peered into the darkness through the opening.  Her lenses adjusted,
but she still couldn’t make out any details.

A low hum
suddenly emanated from beyond the slot.  It grew louder.  The section
of wall containing the slot began to vibrate.  Then it began sliding open.

Jill dove behind
the desk.

From the open
section of wall, someone stepped into the room.  Jill risked a quick
glance around the back corner of the desk.  She could only see the
person’s profile, but it sure looked like Doreen Maybury.

“I
don’t like this,” said Corey, fidgeting in the driver’s seat.

“Don’t like
what?” Bradley asked from the back.

“She should be in
communication with us.”

“You heard the
director,” Amber said from the passenger seat.  “If she’s caught, we can’t
give them a chance to trace her back to our department.  If she’s wearing
a microphone or an earpiece they would immediately suspect she’s government.”

They were in full
uniform, sitting in a department skycar parked at street level a block from the
conservatory.  Through the rain they could just make out the domed glass
roof over the hedges across the street.

Corey shook his
head.  “We should have at least bugged her.”

“They’ll sweep
her for bugs,” said Bradley.

Corey shot a
glare toward the backseat.  “You’re acting like she’s already captured.”

“Okay,
if
they
catch her, they’ll scan her for bugs.”

“For the record,”
Dizzie’s voice sounded in their ears, “I don’t like it either, Cor.  But
it’s the only safe way to do it.”

“Sure,
safe
,”
spat Corey.

“Hey, Jill knows
what she’s doing,” said Amber.  “She’ll be fine.  If anything goes
wrong, at least she’s got the alarm trigger.  We’re ready to move in if
she needs us.”

Corey frowned
some more.  “I just don’t like it.”

JILL
hid herself completely behind the desk and tried to breathe silently.  Her
heart was pounding.

Under the desk
she saw Doreen’s feet.  She wore a suit and stylish heeled shoes.

Another pair of
feet stepped out from the opening.  This pair wore dark, thick-soled
boots.

Doreen turned and
touched something on the filing cabinet.  Jill heard the section of wall
hum shut again.

“Let’s get
moving,” said the deep voice that went with the boots.

“Wait,” Doreen’s
voice cautioned.  Her feet remained rooted in place.

“What’s the
problem?”

Jill saw Doreen
step toward the plant.

The plant she’d
moved out of the way. 
Oh, no...

“Someone’s been
here,” Doreen said decisively.

The next thing
Jill heard sounded distinctly like a weapon being drawn from beneath a
coat.  “Whoever it was may still be in the building,” the deep voice said.

You wouldn’t
expect for a typical conservatory public relations representative to be
packing, but then Doreen Maybury was hardly a typical conservatory public
relations representative.  Jill heard her draw a weapon of her own. 
“Check this room first.”

The two pairs of
feet slowly stepped out into the room.

Jill silently
drew her own gun.

Survival
instincts—enhanced and sharpened from years on the streets—kicked in. 
Within a split-second Jill had considered her options.  There was no way
she could remain hidden; the room was too small, with too few hiding
places.  She could fire at them beneath the desk, but a stunner in the
ankle wouldn’t do much.

The surprise
factor was the only advantage she had.

Her scream was
blood-curdling as she leaped to her feet.  Her shots were fired almost
instantly.

Doreen went down.

The second shot
missed by a hair.  The big, bearded, boot-wearing fellow reacted
quickly.  He dropped to the floor on the other side of the desk.

Jill tipped the
desk toward him.  He growled and caught it, tipping it back the other way.

Too late. 
Jill was out the door.

The guy was
wearing night-vision lenses of his own.  He went after her.

She couldn’t head
back to the alpine display exit and hope to get away from him.  The
hallway leading that direction was too long and too open.  She turned the
other way, ducking into the jungle room.  Two steps inside she plunged
through a wall of huge leaves just off the pathway.

The bearded guy
heard her.  He turned toward the still-swaying tropical leaves.

Jill fired.

The guy scrambled
the other way.  He crouched behind a tree, waiting.

She backed slowly
away, deeper into the jungle foliage.  She was safe for the moment, but
her escape route was blocked.  Visibility was minimal; her night-vision
lenses didn’t do much in the misty jungle room.

With the tip of
her tongue she felt the silent alarm trigger fixed to her tooth.  She
considered biting down on it now.

No, not yet
. 
She didn’t want to blow her cover unless reinforcements were absolutely
necessary, and a game of cat-and-mouse with a hired gun didn’t qualify.

She slipped
behind another large tropical plant.  With a little luck she could circle
her way behind the guy and stun him.

Wait, now he was
moving her direction.  She backed away farther.

He fired a shot
that whistled by her.

She returned the
favor, but he kept coming.  He was an aggressive one, she had to give him
that.

She retreated
further and tripped backward onto a wooden stairway.  It circled its way
around the massive trunk of a tree at her back.

The guy fired
another shot that splintered the stair rail next to her.  Jill couldn’t
see him, but apparently he could see her.

She started
running up the stairway.

He was after her,
thick boots thudding on the wooden steps not far behind her.

She stopped.

He came into
sight and she fired again.  He ducked behind the huge trunk that centered
the curving stairway.

She kept going.

He came after her
again.

She was at the
top of the stairs.  A wooden bridge stretched into the mist before her.

Jill started
across the bridge.  She heard two more shots from behind her.  She
wouldn’t be able to make it to the end of the bridge.

Jill swung over
the edge.

Leaves and tree
limbs slapped at her as she fell.  One branch in particular found its mark
on the side of her head.

She saw stars.

Then nothing.

“...MAYBE
she’s just a common thief.”

Jill heard the
bearded guy’s voice.  She didn’t move, didn’t open her eyes.  She
could feel that she was lying on a concrete floor.

“Highly
unlikely,” said Doreen.

“But she’s
clean,” the guy said.  “No bugs, no trackers.”

“None that your
sweeper picked up,” Doreen said skeptically.

Jill risked
opening her eyes a crack.

A bank of
fluorescent lights blinded her.  Pipes crisscrossed each other along the
ceiling.  Jill was lying on the floor in one corner of the small room,
hands bound behind her back.  Next to her was a rusty metal door. 
There was another door across the room.  This one looked like a
vault—thick reinforced steel with sealed edges and a blinking keypad instead of
a knob.

Doreen and her
minion were standing at an old metal desk in the corner opposite Jill, near the
sealed door.  They had their backs to her.

Jill tested the
bindings on her wrists.  They weren’t exactly expertly done.

“So what do we
do?” the guy was asking.

“We can’t take a
chance,” replied Doreen.  “No matter who she is, she knows too much.”

Jill bit down on
her alarm trigger.  Then she moaned exaggeratedly.

They whirled to
face her.

A
pinging sound filled the car.

“She’s in
trouble,” said Amber.

Corey keyed the
ignition.

“Where’d the
alarm trigger?” asked Bradley.

Amber checked the
console between the front seats.  “In the office area, next to the jungle
room.”

The skycar soared
toward the glass dome.

JILL
sat up slowly, a dazed look on her face.  “
Wh
-where
am I?”

Doreen dispensed
with any pleasantries.  “What were you doing at the conservatory?”

Jill blinked
several times.  “What was I doing where?”

“At the
conservatory,” the bearded guy prompted her.

Doreen glared at
him.

Jill’s eyes
widened.  “The conservatory.  Now I remember.  Oh, my head!”

“What were you
doing there?” Doreen repeated impatiently.

Jill glanced down
at the pocket of her jacket, then looked back up immediately.  “None of
your business.”

The bearded guy
stepped toward her and reached into her pocket.  He pulled out a small
paper packet.

Jill growled
under her breath.

The guy handed it
toward Doreen.

“Too complicated
for you to open?” she asked sourly.

He frowned and
tore open the corner of the packet.  He poured the contents onto the desk
and studied them curiously.  “You know what they are?”

“Of course,” said
Doreen.  “Seeds.”

“What kind of
seeds?”

“Gomez-
Bjorgenson
orchid seeds, what else?”

“Really? 
Pretty big seeds.”

“Your thumb is
not particularly green, is it?  These are the pods.  The seeds are
the particles inside the pods.”

“Worth a fortune
to the right buyer,” said Jill.  “Or so my client tells me.”

THEY
blasted
their way through the glass walls of the jungle room and dashed into the office
area.  The visors of their helmets had already adjusted to night-vision
mode.

“Which one?”
asked Corey.

Amber checked the
screen on the wrist of her uniform.  “In here.”

The room was
nearly empty.

“Nothing,” Corey
said anxiously.

“You’re sure this
is it?” said Bradley.

“This is where
the alarm went off,” Amber insisted.

“AND
who is your client?” asked Doreen.

Jill kept working
at the wrist bindings behind her back.  “How should I know?  People
like me never know the identities of our clients.  Too dangerous.”

“Who would want
these seeds?” the bearded guy asked Doreen.

She ignored
him.  “If you got what you came for,” she asked Jill, “why were you
prowling around the office instead of making your getaway?”

“I didn’t get
what I came for.  My client didn’t just want the seedpods.  He wanted
the records of Doctors Gomez and
Bjorgenson
.”

“So he can
engineer them himself?” the bearded one asked.

Doreen’s cold
expression never changed.  “Is your client some sort of scientist?”