The Nexus Series: Books 1-3 (29 page)

Amber considered
pushing him further but decided she wasn’t getting anywhere this way. 
“Very well.  Good afternoon, Dr. Valentine.”

He was still
trembling when she left.

JILL,
Corey, and Bradley had waited in the museum located on the bottom floor of the
university’s Ridgeview Building.  Photos and items related to the founding
of Anterra were mounted in glass cases here and there along the wide marble
floor.

At the moment
they were studying a display of blueprints.

“Original plans
for the city,” observed Corey.

“The buildings
and streets,” said Bradley, “but not the satellite itself.  That’s what we
need.”

“Museums like
this only display a fraction of the materials in their possession,” said
Jill.  “They’ve got them somewhere.”

Amber’s heels
started clicking toward them.

“So?” Corey asked
expectantly.

“No cigar,” she
said.

“He won’t help
us?”

“Probably too old
and crotchety,” muttered Bradley.

Amber shook her
head.  “Too scared.”

“Of what?” asked
Jill.

Amber
shrugged.  “Whoever he’s afraid of has really gotten to him.”

Corey stroked his
chin.  “You don’t suppose...?”

“He’s with
Sketch?” Bradley finished the thought.

“Think about it,”
said Amber.  “If Sketch wanted to use the tunnels, he would have wanted to
map them out just like we do.”

“Which would have
led him here, just like us,” concluded Jill.  “You’re right.  Maybe
Sketch bought his loyalty.”

“Or at least
forced him to cooperate and then swore him to secrecy,” said Corey.

“It would explain
his behavior,” Amber said with a shrug.

“So he didn’t
give you anything at all?” asked Bradley.

“Not much. 
He did confirm that the museum is still in possession of the blueprints.”

Corey scratched
his head.  “There’s got to be
some
way to get a hold of them.”

“OKAY,”
said Dizzie, tapping away at the central computer in her console, “it looks
like the museum only displays about ten percent of the stuff it owns. 
Most of it is stored in a vault in the
Corriander
Building.”

“Any ideas for
getting in there?” asked Corey.

“Hold on.” 
Dizzie typed up a storm.  She paused and frowned.  “
Hmmmm
.”

“
‘
Hmmmm
’?”
said Bradley.   “‘
Hmmmm
,’ as in, yeah, we can totally break into the vault,
no problem?”

“‘
Hmmmm
,’ as in, not likely.  It’s tough enough just to
get into the
Corriander
Building itself.  It’s
got the university’s official banquet hall, theater, ballroom, stuff like
that.  It’s only open for special occasions.  As far as the vault,
it’s apparently got a one-of-a-kind security system.  Something called
‘Dark Star.’  The university hired a private contractor to design
it.” 

Jill sat up
straighter in her chair.  “Did you say ‘Dark Star’?”

“Yeah. 
Why?  Have you heard of this security system?”

“No.  But I
know who built it.”

16

THE
sun
was just setting as Jill stood in an alley not far from the Aurora Bridge and
looked through a rusting chain link fence.  The backyard on the other side
of the fence was small, but still managed to contain a lot of clutter.

She wasn’t
looking at the clutter.  She was looking where she always looked when she
came back to this place:  at the boughs of the old tree in the back corner
of the yard.  The tree house she and Jerry had built was still there,
still holding together.  Their initials were probably still carved on the
wall inside, though she’d never bother to check.  They’d promised to stay
soul mates forever, she and Jerry Grant—Jerry G, as he liked to be
called.  Dreams like that are very believable when you’re only eleven
years old.

But Jill and
Jerry weren’t eleven any more.

She hopped the
fence and crossed the overgrown lawn.  A cement stairwell led from the
back yard to the basement of the Grant home.  Music thumped behind the
door.  When she opened it, the sound was nearly deafening.

She smiled as she
saw the big curly afro silhouetted against one of the computer screens in the
basement.  Jerry didn’t see her; he just pounded at his keyboard. 
Line after line of code appeared on the screen.

She stepped
directly behind him.  “Is this program legal?” she asked loudly.

He let loose a
shriek as he flew backwards out of his chair.  “Jillian!  Is that
really you, girl?”

She laughed as
she turned down the volume knob on his ancient wood-and-nickel-plated
stereo.  “How are you, Jerry G?”

He smiled that
same smile he’d had since she could remember.  “Other than the heart
attack you just gave me, I’m cool.”  He gave her a hug.  “I’ve been
worried about you!  Last time we were in touch...”

“I know,” she
said guiltily.  “I should have called you or something.”

“So did it work?”

Jill nodded.

“You work for the
government, now?  Wow, girl, I never would have—”  Jerry G’s smile
melted.  “Wait, are you here to arrest me or something?”

She
laughed.  “I’m actually here for the opposite reason.  We need your
help.”

He looked at her
skeptically.  “Who’s ‘we’?”

“Special branch,”
she said.  “I can’t tell you much about it.  Sorry.”

“No, I get
it.  What can I do for your...special branch?”

“We’re interested
in breaking into a vault.”

He laughed. 
“Man, you’re way better at that kind of thing than I am, Jillian.”

“Probably. 
But you happened to program this vault’s security system for
Davarius
University.”

“Ah,
that
vault!” his face brightened.  “One of my best jobs.  Totally legal,
too, by the way.”  He scratched his straggly blonde beard.  “Wait,
how did you trace that back to me?”

She rolled her
eyes.  “‘
Dark Star’?”

He chuckled
sheepishly.  “Oh, right.”

“When are you
going to stop naming your programs after Grateful Dead songs?”

He shrugged. 
“When I run out of them.”

“Then there’s
always going to be at least one person who’ll know you’re the programmer.”

“As long as it’s
you, and your special branch doesn’t want to arrest me, I’m fine with
that.  So why do you need to get in this vault?”

“I can’t tell you
that either, sorry.”

“No, it’s my
bad.  I should stop asking questions.  How can I help?”

“Tell my
department everything about Dark Star—the security system, not the song. 
Are you okay with that?”

“Sure.  Just
tell me when and where.”

“Right now, at
our headquarters.”

Jerry G’s eyes
widened.  “Awesome!  So you’re probably
gonna
have to drive me there blindfolded, huh?”  He laughed.

“Yup,” said Jill.

He swallowed in
mid-laugh.  “Seriously?”

“IT’S
working out great, actually,” said Jill.  She angled the department car
into the abandoned warehouse district east of the lake.

“I’m not
surprised,” Jerry said from the passenger seat.  His voice sounded muffled
behind the hood she’d pulled over his face.

She hadn’t
expected that response.  “Really?”

“
Naw
.  You were never cut out to be a criminal,
Jillian.”

“What do you
mean?”

“Hey, don’t get
me wrong, you were an amazing errander.  One of the best.  I still
hear your name mentioned among the less-reputable!”  He idly fingered the
edge of his hood.

Jill reached over
and pulled his hand away.  “Don’t try to take that off, please.”

“Sorry. 
Don’t worry, I won’t.  Just fidgety.”

“So why do you
think I’m not cut out to be a criminal?”

“It’s just not
you.”

She pulled the
car into Pete’s Fish Cannery.  “But it
was
me.  Being on the
run, dodging the authorities....”

“Well, sure, when
you went down that path, that’s what you became.  But it was never really
you.  What you’re doing now—I know you can’t give me any details, but I can
just hear it in your voice.  This is where you belong.  I’m happy for
you, girl.”

The car descended
into the tunnel.  “Yeah.  I’m happy for me too.”

THE
hood couldn’t come off until they were in an out-of-the-way meeting room off of
HQ.  Jill and Director Holiday sat across from him.

“It’s a fairly
standard bank vault door,” Jerry was telling them.  “I bought it second
hand from Earth.  Completely legal transaction,” he added insistently,
glancing nervously at Holiday.

If the director
was skeptical, he didn’t show it.  “Of course.”

“All I had to do
was tear out the locking mechanism and rig it to a new console.  I made
the console myself from old spare parts.  Once it was installed I let the
professor type in a password.  He’s the only one who knows it.”

“You left a way
to hack into the console, right?” asked Jill.

Jerry shook his
head.  “I used really outdated materials.  The vault’s security isn’t
part of the university’s network; it’s a closed system.  I made it that
way on purpose.”  He leaned forward.  “Maybe you’ll think I’m crazy,
but they say that there’s some agency out there tapped into everyone’s private
networks, watching our every move—you know, recording all our phone calls,
hacking into our computers, that type of thing.”

Holiday cleared
his throat.  “Well, you can’t believe everything you hear.  There are
always rumors like that.”

“Maybe not. 
Still.  I didn’t want anyone else’s technology to be able to access the
vault.”

Jill didn’t let
herself look the director’s way.  “So what if we brought you to the vault
itself?  Could you rig something to tap into the console?”

“I doubt
it.  The thing is a mess of spare parts.  I don’t even remember what
I used.  It was over a year ago.”

“What about
prying open the console and manipulating the locking mechanism directly?” asked
Holiday.

Jerry shook his
head again.   “I safeguarded that possibility too.  The console
can’t be moved without sealing the locking mechanism.”

“You’re saying
the absolute
only
way to get in is to type the password?”

“That or high-powered
explosives,” Jerry chuckled.  “You’d have to blow open half the building,
though; the whole storage area is sealed off pretty well.”

Holiday wasn’t
laughing.  “And there’s no way to change the password?”

“Not without
typing in the original first.  Once it’s been entered, there’s a
sixty-second window to access the security system.”

Jill frowned at
him.  “Well, you thought of everything, didn’t you?”

He held up his
hands.  “Hey, excuse me for doing a good job for my client!  I mean,
sure, if I’d known I’d eventually need to break into the thing—”

“Someone besides
the professor
has
to know what that password is,” said Jill.  “He’s
ninety-seven years old!  Not to be morbid, but he could drop dead any
second—or at least lose his memory.”

“You could get
him to tell you what it is,” suggested Jerry.

“Obviously we’ve
already attempted to obtain Dr. Valentine’s cooperation,” said Holiday.

“Okay,” said
Jerry, shifting uncomfortably in his seat, “but don’t you have...you know,
methods of getting people to talk?”

Jill rolled her
eyes.  “We’re not torturing an old man, Jerry.”

“Then it looks
like there’s only one option.”

“We heard
you—high-powered explosives.”

“No.  You
have to get the professor to type in the password.  I can use the sixty-seconds
of system access to reprogram the console.”

Jill and Holiday
exchanged a glance.  “We can get you your sixty seconds,” Jill promised
Jerry.

THE
history department of
Davarius
University was about
to hold its annual gala for students and faculty.  The event would take
place in the
Corriander
Building.  Dizzie, who
could be incredibly persuasive when she had a mind to, managed to make a
last-minute arrangement for her band to play at the gala.  It helped that
the drummer for the Lawn Flamingoes happened to be one of Dr. Michael
Valentine’s students.

Her official
invitation to the gala arrived in the mail the next day.  She brought it
to the director’s office, waving it proudly.  “Here’s our ticket into the
vault.”

He took the card
from her.  “It’s
your
ticket into the
Corriander
building.  As far as the rest of the team getting inside and breaking into
the vault...”

“We’ll find a
way.  We always do.”

Holiday looked
over the invitation.  The three-by-five card had a decorative ivy
border. 
By invitation only!
the bottom stated clearly. 
Present
this card upon arrival for admittance.
  “May I hang on to this for a
time, please, Desiree?”

She
shrugged.  “You’re the boss.  It’s not like I can say no.”

“True.  I
was merely asking to be polite.”

When she’d left
the office he sat down at his computer.  “Sherlock, can you tell me about
this document?”

“
Certainly
. 
What would you like to know, Director?
”

“How easy would
it be to fake?”

“
Ah, up to no
good, I see.
”

“Just answer the
question, please.”

“
Of course,
sir.  The invitation would, in fact, be quite difficult to falsify. 
Reaming Stationary, Inc., manufactures these cards for formal events.  The
paper is embedded with a digital code.  I assume the university will have
personnel on hand to scan the codes and deter any potential ‘party crashers,’
as they are often called
.”

“Can we obtain
any more such invitations from Reaming Stationary, Inc.?”

“
Unfortunately
not.  Each order contains its own code.”

Holiday
grunted.  “Well, that narrows down our options, doesn’t it?”

But Dizzie was
right.  They would find a way.  They always did.

HE
found Jill and Dizzie sitting with Momma Ginny at lunch in the
caf
.  Whatever Ginny had just said made Dizzie laugh a
bit of food across the table, which in turn made Jill cover her mouth and rock
back and forth in her chair as she tried not to do the same thing.

Holiday
approached the table.  “We certainly run a tight ship around here. 
All business, all the time.”

“Morning to you
too, Director,” said Ginny.  “Guess I better get back to the
kitchen.  They’re always goofing off when I’m not around.”

“There seems to
be a bit of goofing off going on when you
are
around,” muttered
Holiday.  He turned to the girls.  “I have something special planned
for you this evening—a bit of breaking-and-entering, if you’re up to it.” 
There was a mischievous gleam in his eye.

Dizzie shook her
head at Jill.  “You always get to do the fun stuff,” she said with her
mouth full.

“I meant both of
you,” said the director.

Dizzie
swallowed.  “Wait,
what?
”