Should you find yourself in a situation where points regarding ovine corsets and silk stockings are forcibly pressed home to you in a manner that leaves you uncomfortable, do not hesitate to contact me. I am a physician, and have devoted myself to the betterment of the human condition. You might consider me a cad for the manner in which I retrieved my favorite coat, but I am not so far gone to polite dictates as to turn my back on a young woman forced to endure the dressing of a ewe for illicit congress.
I am, madam, your servant.
Keeley Moore
FOUR
“Ow,” I whispered, and doubled over, clutching my shin that had jammed into a trash bin, and rubbing my leg while I simultaneously marveled at the fact that the magic mind thing I’d discovered the week before had indeed worked a third time. “That is seriously cool. I hope Mac got video of it.”
I was in some sort of an office. In front of me was a desk littered with paper and two laptops. I ducked down so that the tan cubicle divider hid me from view as I quickly examined the surroundings. Cautiously, I lifted a shade enough to peer through a small window. Out on the road, Mac was just pulling away.
“Hey, Jesús, do you have—” A woman rounded the entrance to the cubicle, pausing when she saw me hunched over. “Er ... who are you?”
For a moment, I was panicked at being caught, then remembered the detailed cover story Mac and I had worked up the night before. Confidence, I knew, was key. If I acted like I belonged there, no one would question me. I straightened up and gave the woman a cool glance. “Hmm? Oh, I’m Anna Walker.”
She stared pointedly at my chest.
“Ugh, that,” I said, giving her a little “don’t you hate these things?” nod of my head as I pulled out of my pocket one of the replica name badges Mac and I had cobbled up. I clipped it to my shirt, making a show of getting it just right. “This is a silk shirt. I hate to get it so wrinkled with these horrible clampy bits.”
“Ah. Yes. They do tend to chew fabric if you get it caught on something,” she said in a neutral tone of voice. She scanned my identity badge, her eyes opening wide. “Oh! You’re from—oh! I’m sorry, I didn’t realize. Is ... is something wrong with Jesús? I mean, with an Alpha Level here in his office, and all.”
“I couldn’t possibly tell you something so confidential,” I said, silently blessing Mac and her high-powered camera lens. She’d been watching the people who had come and gone from the facility for the last two days, and said she’d picked out a particularly important-looking man’s badge upon which she’d based mine. Evidently she’d picked correctly. I moved past the woman, pausing next to her to say softly, “You will tell no one you saw me here.”
“Oh, no one,” she said on a breath, looking slightly sick.
I gave her a nod and, with confidence I didn’t quite own, strolled down the narrow corridor. Just as I reached one of the doors, a young man with dark hair and a goatee emerged from a restroom, obviously heading for the cubicle I’d just left.
“Jesús,” I said pleasantly, nodding as I passed him.
He nodded back, pausing to look after me in confusion when I walked out the door.
I counted buildings, striding along the cement pathways that snaked between them, hoping that our guess about the biggest structure was correct, and that it housed the dormitories rumored to be used by the bulk of the employees.
At the sight of a pair of armed guards strolling in front of the entrance, I did an about-face. “Damn. Damn, damn, damn. Now how am I going to get in?” I slid on a pair of sunglasses, since everyone there wore them, and moved along the side of the long building trying not to look like I was lost. A few people glanced my way, but no one paid much attention when I strolled around to the back. I peered around, noting a couple of security cameras that appeared to be aimed toward the fence about twenty feet back. With studied nonchalance, I moved close to the building until I judged myself out of view of the cameras, and, with another quick look to make sure no one was around, faced the back of the building. “Right. Clear mind. Think about space like it is a woven fabric, move aside a few strands, and blip!”
I blipped. Luckily, the room I found myself in was a bathroom. Unluckily, the space where I emerged was occupied by a stall door, which caused me to rebound painfully off it, resulting in me staggering to a halt in front of a very surprised woman in the act of brushing her teeth.
“Man, I have got to cut down on those three-martini lunches!” I told her with a weak smile before hurrying out of the bathroom and into a long room with more cubicle walls, these ones arranged around bunk beds, obviously giving the residents a modicum of privacy. I waited a moment to be sure that the woman from the bathroom wasn’t going to raise an alarm, but no one called out for me to stop, so I hurried down the center aisle, consulting my phone and the latest text I had from Lucy.
From: Lucy
According to Never Home Alone, Britt’s phone is located at the following building. Since she is never without her phone, I’m sure you’ll find her at the same location. I’m equally sure she’ll flip you shit about her being old enough to make her own decisions, but she is not. At least, not emotionally. And the man she’s decided she’s in love with is absolutely, one hundred percent at fault for luring a nineteen-year-old to join him in whatever horrible sex den he’s set up at the Crabs. Save my deluded child, Jenna, before she makes a big mistake.
I looked at the map that Lucy’s tracking software had provided, and counted the building blobs. According to the map, an hour ago, Britt’s phone, at least, had been just a few feet away from me. I continued down the corridor, pausing when the cubicle walls ended, and a couple of closed doors indicated more private rooms.
I tapped at one of the doors.
“It’s about time you came back. I’m getting tired of—oh.” The young woman who answered the door was of middling height, with a round face, long, glossy black hair straight out of one of those ancient Japanese artworks, and a sulky expression that drove home the point that Britt might think she was in love, and old enough to run away with her boyfriend, but in reality, she lacked the maturity for such a situation. “What are you doing here?”
I ignored the accusation in her voice and pushed past her into the room, saying, “Hi, Britt! You don’t mind if I come in, do you? Wow, this room is a lot nicer than the dorm setups. Is that a private bathroom?”
“Mom sent you, didn’t she?” Britt asked, her hands on her hips, the door still half-open behind her. “I told her that I am an adult, and she can’t make me go back home if I don’t want to. And I don’t.”
“I get that, I totally do,” I said, sitting on the end of a large bed, carefully selecting the bottom corner, where the blankets weren’t rumpled. The bed was unmade, and the room, while infinitely nicer than the accommodations in the outer room, looked like a whirlwind had hit it. There were clothes, cosmetics, and random items near and dear to nineteen-year-old girls’ hearts scattered on every surface. I nudged aside a couple of flip-flops with jeweled straps and smiled. “I know how important it is to feel in charge of your life, but here’s the thing—your mom is worried that your ... er ... friend isn’t everything he says he is.”