he wanted to make sure the little guy stayed out of trouble in the final stages of the mission. Cortez felt he owed him that at least.
He also felt responsible towards Anna. There were few women in his life he had thought of as friends and there were even fewer Christians, especially since his conversion. But Cortez thought Anna a very dear friend, no matter what either of them believed in. He felt there was something holy about her intentions to find the virus in the complex below. He wanted to make certain that she saw this through to the end.
They sat for hours by the ventilation shaft, watching the sun go down as Greaves had been insistent they only attempt to enter in the dead of night. They said very little as they sat together. There was very little any of them had to say. Greaves had a pocket watch that he kept consulting every half hour. Timing was everything in this operation he told them.
Cortez was about to stand to get the blood flowing in his legs when Anna cried out. She clutched her stomach and writhed as though in pain. Cortez bent over her to see if she was alright and Anna, forgetting herself, clasped hold of his robes and pulled herself close.
'It knows I'm here,' she said, choking out the words between spasms of pain. 'Merciful father, so many of them. So hungry for me.' She clung on to Cortez who did not know how to respond. He did not wish to be disrespectful of Anna, to compromise her modesty. He felt uncomfortable being so close to her, but he was the only person to whom she could be close.
To Cortez being physically close to another human being meant he was going to hurt them. He was very good at causing pain. He knew little about giving comfort. He cast his mind to the Qu'ran and remembered Muhammad himself, peace be upon him, had said, 'I commend you to be good to women.' While Allah had been explicit in saying: 'Whether male or female; you are of one another.'
She felt tiny next to him, whimpering in pain. Cortez placed his large, scarred arms around her. This felt strange to him, but not unpleasant. He didn't believe it was wrong. He was honouring the teachings of the prophets, and helping his friend.
'It's your biogenic field,' said Greaves. 'It can sense your proximity. I imagine if you were to examine the virus under an electron microscope you would see an increased level of activity. Something akin to excitement, no doubt. It senses in you the potential of what it might become. It feels the hunger of all life to evolve, to improve its condition and to grow more powerful.'
Greaves words didn't help Anna any, but after a while the pain died down and she was herself again. She pulled away from Cortez, suddenly embarrassed by their closeness. Cortez, for his part, didn't know where to put himself either and they turned away from each other. Greaves saved them any further uneasiness by glancing at his watch and deciding it was time to crawl down the ventilation shaft.
Taking a Swiss army knife from his pocket, Greaves undid the screws on the grill. The shaft was a sheer drop, so they proceeded by pressing their palms and their feet against opposite sides and shuffling down. Cortez could see Greaves was having trouble with this. He was weak from pain and lack of food and the effort probably wasn't good for his wounds.
Fortunately the vent changed direction, slanting off at an angle about twenty feet down. Greaves let go of the sides with gratitude and slid down the smooth metal of the shaft. Cortez and Anna followed suit. They crawled along the last few feet of the shaft as it became horizontal.
The shaft ended in a grill, six feet off the ground, that looked onto a corridor. Greaves snipped a hole in each corner of the grill's wire and reached through to undo the screws holding it in place. They lifted the grill off but Greaves made them wait before climbing out of the shaft.
'As part of an energy efficiency drive, the security system only ever uses a third of it's cameras at any one time,' said Greaves without looking up from his watch. 'They're programmed to go on and off in a predetermined sequence. If you know the sequence you can pass through the building without once being caught on camera. There's only a skeleton security crew posted this time of night, so if we're lucky, we won't run into any of them on the way there.' Greaves looked up from his watch. 'Right. Time to go.'
Cortez helped Greaves out of the shaft then lowered Anna down without making a noise. They crept along a labyrinth of corridors, each one looked identical to the last with only the numbers on the doors varying. Greaves would stop them occasionally, look at his watch for a moment, then tell them to continue.
The whole place felt like a morgue or a hospice to Cortez. It wasn't anything specific he could put his finger on. It just felt like somewhere that people came to die.
They followed Greaves around a corner and walked straight into a wall. No doors, just a dead end. Greaves looked confused. He put his hands on the wall to see if it was real, then he looked back round the corner to check where they were. 'This can't be right,' he said. 'This should lead to a flight of stairs. I memorised the whole map. I've got a photographic memory and perfect recall.'
Anna turned and walked back down the corridor. 'It's this way,' she said. She was as confident and nonchalant as Greaves was flustered and confused.
'Wait,' Greaves said. 'Where are you going? You'll get us caught. You can't possibly know where we are.'
Anna spoke in a calm voice. 'I know exactly where to go. It's calling me. You might not understand this Mister Greaves, but every molecule in my body is alive with the sound of its need.'
'Err, well… yes. Of course I understand. I've just never heard you talk this way before. We have to wait for this camera to go off then you better lead the way.'
Cortez smiled. Greaves was not used to someone knowing more than him. Knowledge was how he kept control of things. Now they were in Anna's hands. They followed her back along the corridors and down two flights of stairs.
As they rounded a corner they heard footsteps coming towards them. Anna, Greaves and Cortez froze. Greaves glanced at his watch and then at the camera mounted just above them. He signaled that they had ten seconds until the camera came on.
The footsteps moved away and Cortez realised he had been holding his breath. Anna led them to a set of double doors. They looked impregnable. Beside them was a keypad.
Greaves inspected the keypad and nodded. 'They never change,' he said, smiling. 'Doesn't matter what happens to the world, they use the same old security tricks. The code is a basic algorithm, with two variables determined by the number of the floor and the department. Now let's see…' Greaves started to tap away. He looked happier than Cortez had seen him in a while.
The double doors clicked then opened with a pneumatic hiss. Anna strode through them as if she was being pulled by some invisible force. Greaves was still tapping at the keypad which was now making a high pitched whining noise. Cortez was not certain if he should stay and look after Greaves or go and accompany Anna.
Greaves waved him on. 'It's okay. You go after Anna. I just have to override and re-set all the codes. It's just a precaution. I won't be long.' Cortez left him and hurried after Anna. She was marching past cages of rabbits, rats and mice.
The doors hissed shut behind him. Cortez hoped Greaves wouldn't need pulling out of the shit anytime soon. Right now he had to look out for Anna.
Greaves was going to do a number on their internal coding. They'd always underestimated him. That's how he'd gotten away and stayed one step ahead of them.
Using the keypad to access the whole complex's CPU, Greaves sent a counter command worming its way back through the system, changing the codes for every electronic lock in the place. It would take them three or four hours to isolate and countermand the code he'd set up, once they'd noticed. Until that time he was in control of every security door in the complex. That would hopefully give them the edge they needed to get out of the place with the virus.
Greaves punched in the new code and the doors hissed open once again. The code would change every two minutes, based on a cunning variation of the geometric theta progression. At the moment only Greaves knew what the code would be at any one time.
As Greaves stepped into the lab, he remembered a novel from a summer school he had attended in American Literature when he was thirteen. He was home from MIT and had no-one to play with. He didn't have any friends his own age and his fellow students were college kids, at best they thought him cute, at worst a victim for pranks. So his parents sent him on courses at the Massachusetts College of Liberal Arts during the vacation.
The novel was by Thomas Wolfe, its title was You Can't Go Home Again, which always had a special
