The Nexus Series: Books 1-3 (38 page)

28

“JERRY
G?”

He responded with
his traditional whirl-around-and-shriek routine.  He tried to say
something, but no words would escape his quivering lips.

Jill remembered
she was still wearing her helmet.  She lifted it off.

Jerry G’s mouth
hung open.  “Jillian?  Are you
kidding me?
”

She started
walking toward him.  “What are you doing here, Jerry?”

“What are
you
doing here?”

“Tracking down
the ruthless criminal ring that operates out of this lab.”

“What?  That
can’t be—!”

“Who are you working
for Jerry?” her tone was growing harsher.  “Tell me!”

He was backing
against the workstation’s desk.  She thought he might crawl up on
it.  “I don’t know!  They just told me—”

“Jerry G, don’t
you dare lie to me!  Tell me every single thing you know about this
operation. 
Now
.”

The panic
vanished from Jerry G’s face.  The expression he wore now was plain,
simple hurt.  “Jill, come on, it’s me!  You’re my oldest friend, and
even though we hardly see each other anymore you’re still my best friend. 
So you don’t have to worry about me lying to you, okay?”

Jill steeled
herself.  She couldn’t let him do this; she couldn’t let his words soften
her.

His voice was
getting more and more desperate.  “Even if I wanted to lie to you, I
couldn’t.  Not to you, girl!  But it doesn’t matter because I
don’t
want to lie to you.  You don’t have to interrogate me!  If you’re
here, I know it’s for a reason.  I’ll tell you anything you want to
know.  Just please put the gun down, okay?”

She didn’t even
know she’d drawn her weapon.  It was startling—disturbing—to see it there
in her hands, pointed right at the one person in the universe she’d always
known she could trust, and who had always trusted her blindly in return.

She should put
the gun away.

No, she
couldn’t!  If he was playing her...But no, Jerry G would never play
her.  There was nothing but naked sincerity in his frightened eyes.

Well, if he was
playing her, she was falling for it.  The gun went back in its holster.

Jerry G closed
his eyes with relief.  “Thanks,” he whispered.

“I’m sorry,
Jerry,” she said.  Her voice was quivering.

He
shrugged.  “You’re just doing your job.”

“You’re just
doing yours, too.”

“But it looks
like your job is to stop me from doing mine, huh?”

“I guess it is,
isn’t it?”

He looked at the floor. 
“I was trying to tell you before.  I thought I was working for the good
guys this time.”

“You did?”

He nodded. 
“I know I turned down your offer to join your department.  I told you that
just wasn’t me.  And it isn’t.  But ever since you went clean—ever
since you told me you were getting out of the errander business—I’ve been doing
some serious thinking.  I couldn’t bring myself to take a job I knew was
dirty.  I pictured you there watching me, being disappointed with me,
somehow.”

“Not disappointed,”
she said softly.  “Just worried.”

“Either way, I
wanted to clean up my act.  A little, anyway.  The day I helped you
pull that stunt at GoCom, I quit the job I’d been on.  Then I signed on
here.  They promised it was on the up-and-up.  They said we’d be
developing
nanobots
—
nanotechnological
robots—for a private dealer, totally above-board.  Obviously they didn’t
give us the name of the dealer.”  He smiled regretfully.  “I
should’ve been more skeptical, I guess.  Maybe I believed them because I
wanted to.  I wanted to do the right thing, for once.  And it sounded
like such an awesome opportunity.”

“The RedEyez—you
helped build them?”

“I was one of the
chief designers.  I helped finalize the automatic navigational system that
drives the
nanobots
; I also programmed the software
that runs the audio/video and transfers the data.  I just worked out the
last bugs in the system.  I came down to install the final updates for
testing.”

“Jerry, we could
really use your help bringing these guys down.”

“I know. 
What can I do to help?”

She looked at him
questioningly.

“I’m in,
Jillian,” he assured her.  “Now what can I do?”

“Just like
that?  I mean, you’ve been working for these people for a while, putting
all this effort into the project.  You’re sure you can just switch sides
all of a sudden?”

He looked like he
thought she’d said something funny.  “I’ve always been on
your
side, Jillian.  And I always will be.”

She smiled at the
floor.  Was she blushing?

“Besides,” Jerry
added, “whatever work I’ve put into the RedEyez, I can’t stand to see it in the
hands of a crook.”  He laughed to himself.  “I’ve never felt that way
about my work before.  It feels good, you know?”

“I know,” she
said with a smile.

“So what can I
do?”

She
hesitated.  “It might be dangerous.”

“More dangerous
than the
Davarius
vault heist?”

“Sketch is behind
this, Jerry.”  She figured he’d know the name of the most disreputable
crime lord in the city.

She was
right.  Recognition and dread came over his face.  “Great.  So
I’ve unwittingly been aiding the worst person in Anterra.”

“Don’t beat
yourself up.  You didn’t know it.  Anyway it’s working out to our
advantage.”

Jerry paled
suddenly and grabbed her arm.  “Jill, he’s coming here!”

“What do you
mean?”

“Sketch! 
He’ll be here. 
Today
.”

She tried not to let
herself believe him.  It was too frightening, too perfect.  “How do
you know?”

He took a deep
breath.  “Okay, now that I think about it, it’s probably not Sketch
himself.  But one of his bigwigs, anyway.”

“You’re sure?”

Jerry nodded
vigorously.  “Flannigan—that’s the guy who runs this lab—he’s been keeping
someone up-to-date on our progress.  Whoever it is, he’s observing our
RedEyez test launch today in person.”

“A perfect
setup,” breathed Jill.  “Okay.  How long until the rest of the
workers get here?”

“They’ll show up
around seven.”

Jill checked the
time.

They had just
over two hours to prepare the most critical ambush in department history.

She looked up to
the shadowy recesses of the high lab ceiling.  Rungs, pipes and
ventilation shafts crisscrossed in the darkness.   “We can do this,”
she whispered.

“THE
scrambler is disabled,” Jerry announced to the team assembled in the lab about
an hour later.  It turned out the signal jammer was installed in a storage
closet near the office.

“Great,” said Corey. 
“Surveillance is in place.  Dizzie, you’ll be running the operation from
your station in the tunnels just outside the lab.”

“You’re sure no
one will open the door?” Dizzie asked Jerry anxiously.

“He already told
you no one would,” said Bradley.

“I know. 
But, I mean, you’re like
sure
sure
?”

Jerry
chuckled.  “I’m sure
sure
.  No one’s used
that door since the elevator was built last year.”

Dizzie seemed to
be slightly comforted.

“The rest of us
will take our positions in about thirty minutes,” said Corey.  “The test
is scheduled to begin at noon, right, Jerry?”

Jerry G
nodded.  “I’ll be running the test from this central workstation
here.  The entire team will be gathered behind me to watch.  That’ll
be the ideal moment.”  He cleared his throat.  “Um, if possible,
could you try not to shoot me?”

“Impossible,”
said Bradley.  “You’ll be right in the middle of everyone!  Don’t
worry, it’ll only be a stunner.”

“Ah. 
Well.  Just thought I’d ask.”

“We’ll do our
best, Jerry,” Jill assured him.

“Diz, did you
ever get a chance to report our situation to the director?” asked Corey.

Dizzie shook her
head.  “I haven’t been able to reach him.”

“Keep trying,”
her urged her.

THE
waiting was painful.

From 6:55 a.m. to
7:15 a.m., a stream of Project RedEyez workers in business-casual dress arrived
via the elevator.  There were about twenty of them altogether.  They
were both men and women, young and old, and from various ethnic
backgrounds.  They busied themselves in their workstations as they
prepared for the test launch.  There was pleasant chatter as they went
about their business, exchanging small talk between cubicles or bantering at
the water cooler or the coffee pot.

They were
obviously oblivious to the fact of three intruders watching them from the dark
recesses near the laboratory ceiling.

As Jill watched
them from her perch on a row of pipes just above the elevator, she couldn’t
shake the feeling that she was looking down on a group of regular people doing
a regular job.

Regular people
she would be shooting at in a few hours.

DIZZIE’S
“station” consisted of the mobile screens from the rest of the team.  Laid
out before her, the six small screens rotated between live images from her
teammate’s visors and the other cameras they’d set up around the lab.

“Okay, team,” she
said tensely, “the wait is almost over.  It’s a quarter to twelve.”

“Finally,” said
Bradley.  “It feels like we’ve been here all day.”

“Um, you have
been there all day,” said Dizzie.  “I hope none of you has to go to the
bathroom.”

“Don’t talk about
it,” said Corey.

HE
arrived ten minutes before the hour.

A hush settled
over the lab as the elevator doors opened.  Four escorts in black suits
stepped off first.  Then, with the gray-ponytailed Flannigan at his side,
the important visitor entered the lab for the first time.  All eyes in the
laboratory were immediately on him.

He was
tall.  A long black coat hung past his knees.  He wore a protective
black helmet with a visor to obscure his identity.  From behind twin
reflective orbs, like wasp’s eyes, he studied the lab.  Over his mouth was
a slotted speaker that distorted his voice.

“A great
privilege to have you here at last, sir,” Flannigan told the visitor.

“The privilege is
mine,” a mechanical voice grated from the visitor’s visor.  “I have been
anticipating this day for a long time, now.”

The guest walked
with slow, deliberate strides, black boots clicking importantly on the polished
floor.  One by one he shook hands with each worker, thanking them all for
their contributions to the project.  The workers stumbled over nervous
responses, star-struck in his presence.

Jill strove to
resist the temptation to shoot the visitor here and now.  It was
excruciating to look directly down on one of Sketch’s highest associates—maybe
Sketch himself—and do nothing.  But she forced herself to wait.

Now Flannigan was
introducing the visitor to Jerry G—“One of our finest employees, and the one
who will be conducting the test launch.”

Keep a
straight face, Jerry!
Jill pleaded silently.  Jerry G had never been
great at hiding his true feelings.

It had to be a
miracle.  Jerry beamed a smile and shook the visitor’s black-gloved hand
heartily.  “An honor, sir!”

“Thank you for
all of your hard work, Mr. Grant,” the distorted voice said.  “Are we
ready to proceed?”

“We are.” 
Jerry took his seat at the central computer.

Flannigan opened
the briefcase and withdrew one of the glass cylinders.  He unscrewed the
cap, and placed it on Jerry’s desk.  “This is it, folks,” he announced,
“the moment we’ve been waiting for!” 

Everyone knew the
plan.  From his computer, Jerry would activate one of the microscopic
machines housed in the glass tube—activate
RedEye
I
, to be exact.  The team would take in the audio/video feed from the
nanobot
as it flew itself around the lab.  At last
they would taste the fruits of their labor.

DIZZIE
watched her screens like a hawk.  She checked each camera to ensure there
were no stragglers.  Every worker in the lab had now gathered behind
Jerry’s desk.  All eyes were on him.

This was it.

“
Now!
”
Dizzie hissed.

THEY
took
out the visitor’s armed guards first.

The four men
hadn’t even hit the floor before panic was erupting from the rest of the
workers.  Shrieks and aimless running, pushing and shoving, gasping and
yelling ensued.  Gunfire seemed to be raining from all around them.

The visitor threw
himself under Jerry’s desk.  Jerry was already there, crouching with his
hands over his head.

A stray stunner
hit him.

More stunned
workers hit the floor.

Flannigan
collapsed behind the end of the row of workstations.

The visitor cried
out, slumping to the floor beneath the desk.

The shooting
finally stopped.

The room was
silent and motionless.

The four shooters
dropped from their separate positions in the recesses of the ceiling. 
Dizzie appeared in the doorway from the tunnels.

They surveyed
their handiwork.

“Hmm,” said
Bradley, “that went surprisingly well.”

They gathered
around the fallen visitor.  Corey knelt and reached for the man’s visor.

“Wait.”  The
mechanical voice, faint though it had been, startled the life out of them.

Four weapons were
suddenly aimed at him.

The visitor lay
motionless.  “Perhaps if I explained first—”