They hurried, taking the stairs two at a time. By the tenth floor, H124 was feeling her lack of sleep.
“What floor is Firehawk going to be on?” Astoria asked from behind.
“You really want me to tell you?” Byron said.
“Tell me, or I’ll throw you off this damn staircase.”
“Three hundred thirty-four.”
“Damn it! I shouldn’t have asked!”
Progress was slow. They fell into a rhythm, taking twenty floors before resting.
“You sure they’d detect us in that elevator?” Astoria wondered, as they sat on the stairs.
“Not necessarily,” replied H124. “It’s not a routine check or anything, if it’s like my city. But if someone was watching and noticed a maintenance worker and three other people who look like you all do . . .”
Astoria looked disappointed. “Gotcha.”
They continued up. H124’s burning legs slowly morphed into rubber. Halfway up, at floor 174, Dirk finally retched over the railing. He wiped his mouth and lingered there for a moment. H124 watched Astoria place an unexpected hand on his back. She then moved past her brother. He took up the rear, looking wretched.
H124 lost track of how many times they rested. She just kept seeing Byron glancing at his PRD. The tension hung in the air, as all of them knew how late they were. Climbing the stairs took far longer than any of them had expected.
Finally they reached the designated floor, legs trembling. Byron waited by the stairwell door, and H124 unlocked it, more weary than ever. They slipped inside, Byron leading the way. He pulled out his gun, aiming it both ways down the hall. They were clear.
“We need to find the surveillance room.” He brought up a floating map on his PRD. H124 looked over his shoulder while he checked it. “This way.” He nodded to the left, and they followed him down the quiet corridor.
H124 felt eyes everywhere. She was sure they had cameras in all the corridors and only hoped no one was looking at this hall at this particular time.
They hastened to a door halfway down, and Byron gave her the signal to open it. She approached the theta wave receiver and commanded it to open. Nothing happened.
“What’s wrong?” asked Astoria, wielding her gun.
“It’s locked. I don’t have access.”
“Now what?” Dirk asked, glancing back down the corridor with the same queasy look.
“I can do a work-around, but it might take a few minutes.” H124 concentrated, sending the unlock signal to the receiver. It didn’t obey. She thought open and close in the same instant, then imagined the door stuck halfway. She envisioned it locked and unlocked at the same time—an image of the bolts secured, double-exposed over one of them open. The door made a series of clicks, then locked and unlocked, slid open a little way, then closed.
She heard Astoria gasp. “Damn,” she whispered. “That’s creepy.”
H124 sent the door more conflicting images of it being in two states at once: open and closed, locked and unlocked. It clicked through a series of settings, and with a hiss and acrid smell of burning electronics, the door slid open.
“Let’s go,” Byron said.
They entered a small room in which a variety of servers whirred. H124’s breath frosted in the air.
Byron did a quick circuit of the room, his gun level. He returned to the others. “Firehawk’s not here yet.”
Dirk licked his lips, then manually slid the door shut. Second-guessing himself, he opened it just a crack. “Where can he be?”
Byron shrugged.
“Damn!” Astoria lowered her gun.
“Maybe we should bail, try this again a different time. All go in together,” Dirk suggested.
Byron shook his head. “He’ll be here.”
“Unless he’s dead,” Astoria countered.
Byron remained adamant. “We have to wait. The death squad is moving on us, and if we can find out when and where, we can be one step ahead of them. It’s worth the risk.”
Dirk shifted from one foot to the other, a full-blown nervous wreck. “And if they realize we’re in here? If they already know we’re in here?”
“Just cool it,” Byron told him.
Silence fell over the group. Over the next few minutes Dirk kept peeking through the small crack in the door.
H124 toured the room, surveying the vast array of servers. The PPC certainly had a staggering amount of room for information collecting.
She returned to the door, and Dirk hissed through his teeth. “Someone’s coming.”
They pressed against the wall, guns at the ready. The footsteps came nearer, then stopped outside the door. Fingers laced through the opening and pushed slightly. A familiar face peered into the room. “Byron?” it whispered.
Rowan. She couldn’t believe it.
Byron hurried to the door and wrenched it open. “Firehawk! You made it!”
“Thank the gods you’re here,” Rowan laughed, grasping his shoulder. “I didn’t know how the hell I was going to get in.” His eyes fell on H124, and his jaw fell agape. “You?”
She felt herself smile. “You’re Firehawk?”
He took her in his arms. At once she felt relief steal over her. She wasn’t as scared. “How the hell are you here? I didn’t think I’d ever see you again,” he admitted.
Byron raised his eyebrows. “You two know each other?”
“Are you kidding me?” Rowan said, grinning. “If it weren’t for her, I wouldn’t even have the prototype. She saved my life.”
Astoria looked at H124, impressed.
“And when we parted,” Rowan added, “I told her to stay the hell away from the likes of you all.” He clasped hands with Astoria and Dirk. Even Dirk looked a little less nervous.“You’re alone?” Dirk asked Rowan. “How did you get in here?”
He looked down with pursed lips. “The worker I was with got killed in the firefight. But a PPC exec I’ve been talking to did some work-arounds to get me into the city. She was sympathetic to our cause. But they . . . they killed her after we got into the building. It won’t be long before they find us in here. We’ve got to
