The Other Side of Life (Book #1, Cyberpunk Elven Trilogy) (15 page)

To Anya, Nin’s kisses and the touch of his
fingertips were more invigorating than all of that combined.

Each kiss was a divine imprint on her lips,
etched upon her memory—burning through her soul with the fire of a
thousand suns.

Chapter 9:

Anya and Nin were still in each other’s arms
when the portal brought them back to The Velvet Underground. Anya
thought she’d closed her eyes to a cadence of blinding light.

“
Nin,” Anya heard the
train’s voice coming on, “you two won’t be alone much
longer.”

But they ignored the voice, caught up in the
surreal world of real touches, proper hugs, feeling so alive being
so close to another living body—passion was something so scarce
that it was something overwhelming for both of them.

They finally let go when they heard Tavia’s
shrill voice down the passageway, calling out, “They’re back!”

“
Are we late?” Nin checked
his N-Gage. It was five minutes before midnight. Anya’s eyes
widened when she saw the ‘B’ tattoo had taken on a bright glow on
Nin’s lower neck. He grabbed his black leather coat he’d brought
along with him into the train, quickly buttoned the top part of the
coat, and smoothed his hair down, just before any of the others
could step in.

When Tavia appeared, she was holding the
maps and a bunch of tools and equipment. Her hair and slinky outfit
were impeccably styled. She had spent the last few minutes
freshening up—it made her feel better, which gave her more
confidence regarding her duties with the break-in. Dresan and
Leticia followed behind. A neat coil of wires sat on the surface of
a laptop that Dresan was carrying. Leticia looked like all the
blood had gone from her face.

“
Are you all right?” Anya
asked, once Leticia had gingerly stepped into the train carriage.
“When did you get here?”

“
Just ten minutes ago,”
Leticia replied, with a drawn and tired smile, which made Anya
think the rehearsal must have been a long one. “I got your
message.” She loosely interlocked her fingers, before turning to
face Anya. “Are you prepared?”

Anya shifted her gaze to Nin, still giddy
from his kiss. Nin was busy fixing a transparent earpiece into one
of his ears, which was attached to a clear coiled wire piece that
went round his neck. Dresan and Tavia had one on too.

“
We’ve been busy,” Anya
replied Leticia, not noticing the wily smile on Nin’s face as she
spoke. “We got you something too.” She remembered the diamond dust
pendant Nin had specially made for them, and gave Leticia the one
she had been keeping in her pocket.

“
Wow!” Leticia loved it,
and put it on right away. She was fascinated with the delicate
gleam of the icicle pendant. She looked happier when she smiled,
though still a little bit distracted, like half of her attention
was elsewhere.

Leticia and Julius,
Anya thought, picturing them in her mind.
Like me and Nin a while ago…

“
They let you try the Coca
tea?” Anya said with a knowing grin to Leticia, who was a tea
aficionado.

Before Leticia could answer, Nin handed Anya
a utility belt. It held a few important pieces of equipment—a
belayer lock, cell compartment, thin coil of rope, and two keys on
separate loops. Anya recognized them as the substitute pieces Nin
had mentioned earlier.

He had a belt on himself. Anya noticed he
had two guns strapped somewhere along the sides of his waist as
well, which gave him a lean, mean, dangerous look.

“
Need a crash course?” Nin
asked. He had no qualms giving a quick overview, even if he had
only a minute to spare.

“
My dad taught me,” Anya
reassured Nin, gesturing to the metal loop that was the metallic
turquoise belayer lock. “We used to go rock climbing.” Turning to
Leticia, and pointing to the utility belt she was putting on, she
commented, “We should get one of these.”

Nin shot a quizzical look over to Anya.

“
We like to travel light,”
she let him know, as she opened and snapped the loop of the belayer
device. Hearing the ‘click’ of the loop brought her right back to
the indoor hall where she had first been taught how to rock
climb.

“
Keep going, Anya!” she
heard her dad’s voice, as she thought back to her first rock
climbing session. She had missed her footing several times, but
finally managed to reach the top after much encouragement from her
father. He had always believed in her, even when she didn’t believe
in herself, and she missed him.

“
What are you using to pick
the lock?” Nin asked next.

Anya gave a quick smile. “I have my own
tools.”

“
Okay.” Nin glanced at her
pocket, wondering if she had hidden it there. Maybe Leticia had
brought it along for her.

Dresan was working on the laptop, and showed
Anya the picture of the first lock she had to pick.

“
You’ll be entering from
here,” Dresan pointed to a small ventilator near the ceiling of the
key room in the Omega building. “You’ll enter the room using
that”—he pointed to the belayer on Anya’s belt—“and have ten
seconds to get the keys. If it’s open for any longer, it starts to
beep, which alerts the guard over here.” He circled an area a few
paces in front of the key cabinet. “The guard has a bunch of
screens in front of him, which show what the security cameras are
capturing. We’ve created something to distract him for fifteen
seconds, which will buy you some time.”

Anya was biting on her lower lip, as she
fastened her belt, and studied the picture of the lock. “You’re
telling me this…now.”

Dresan nodded. “We figured you work better
under stress.”

Anya looked at Nin. From the way he smiled
back, he seemed to know, that she knew it must have been him who
figured that out.

“
We managed to figure out
how to deactivate the alarm system,” Tavia added, meaning ‘she and
Dresan’ with ‘we’. “We’ll get in with the guy’s password and his 3D
eyeball hologram ID—oh, and the janitor’s room should go fine,
since we hacked that some time ago, so that any ID from someone
within the GI can get through, not just Varian Gilbreth and those
closest to him.”

Anya looked over at Nin, who hadn’t
mentioned any of these steps to her.

“
Just concentrate on your
task,” Nin assured her. “And bring that along with you.” He pointed
to the night vision goggles he’d handed to her earlier.

Getting the two keys,
right,
Anya noted.

“
Leticia will be helping me
out here,” Dresan continued, “and Tavia will exit the building once
Anya’s got the other key from the guard. All clear?”

Tavia, Nin, and Anya bobbed their heads.
Leticia was the last to give a nod. Anya on the other hand, was
pumped up and ready to go. She crossed her fingers behind her,
hoping against hope that the break-in would be as well coordinated
in its execution, as it was in its elaborate planning.

“
This is really awesome,”
Anya said to Leticia, the train’s second human passenger for the
night.

The train started to move, and approached
the blue portal. Nin and Tavia had placed their own goggles over
their heads too. Tavia passed him a couple of herbs from a packet
she had with her, and they ingested it.

“
Our brand of magik
mushrooms,” Nin said to Anya, raising his eyebrows. “Helps our eyes
and ears go into hypermode, for a while.”

Anya’s interest was piqued. “Can I have
some?”

“
This one’s a bit advanced,
dear,” Tavia said, holding Anya back. “We don’t do this too
often—too strong…”

Leticia’s hands were gripping the edge of
her seat as the train carriage sped forward, surrounded by the
celestial light. This time, Anya could see faint train tracks in
front of the carriage, that guided the train to its
destination.

Nin was busy going over the maps one last
time. Anya couldn’t help but spend some of the time to study the
contours of his streamlined body.

The journey this time was much quicker than
the trip to Helli’sandur. They’d whizzed past the Milky Way
backdrop again, but it seemed to be less than a minute that the
train passed through another blue station. Leticia looked around at
everyone when the train came to a stop, to convince herself that
each of them had gotten safely over to the other side.

“
Rigging the security tapes
in...one minute,” Dresan let all of them know. He had everything
prepared on the hard drive, with a couple of thumb drives for
back-up, in case anything went wrong with the stored files. He and
Leticia would be looking at the screens, side by side—what the
security tapes at the GI were showing, and what the prepared rigged
tapes would show, instead.

Tavia and Nin hopped out of the carriage,
shortly after the group arrived at the dark, underground site. Anya
exchanged a quick hug with Leticia before hopping off. Tavia and
Nin were already making their way up a flight of stairs. All the
stairs and passages looked the same to Anya. She didn’t know if
there were little differences which clued the elves in as to which
passageway they found themselves traveling through.

“
We’ll be entering the
compound at the back of the Omega unit,” Nin informed Anya, when
they reached the end of the stairway. “Then we’ll enter the
ventilation system, to get to the key room.” He touched the back of
her elbow lightly, to let her know everything would be all right.
Anya still felt she was going to be hit with an ill-timed panic
attack. She felt like wrapping her arms around Nin again too, but
decided not to, since Tavia was already getting the door open. She
wondered if the earlier events of the night were adding to her
anxiety.

Anya turned around once the three of them
emerged from the dark stairway—they had stepped out from a tree in
the compound’s lush garden. Nin and Tavia crept through the
shadows, with Anya tailing them. The trio hid behind some bushes,
looking out for an opportune moment.

A guard was on patrol, strolling on foot.
They could hear him even if they had their eyes closed, as his feet
dragged against some gravel on the ground.

Anya’s heart froze when the guard turned in
their direction. He kept his gaze on one of the bushes that was
several feet away from Nin, Tavia, and Anya, squinting to see if
there was some movement in one of the lower branches. Anya was
half-expecting the guard to prod the bushes with a rifle or
shotgun—she’d leave it to the elves to handle the situation, if it
did get to that.

“
Get back,” Tavia
whispered. Anya moved, before she realized that Tavia hadn’t
intended the message for her.

Just then, a small rodent dashed out to the
edge of the pavement. Anya heard it give a tiny squeak. The guard
crept forward, almost ready to kick or crush the tiny vole, before
it saw the guard, and scampered back into the bush. Nin and Tavia
silently cheered for the quick-thinking rodent, as the guard faced
the front again, and continued patrolling in a straight line. He
hadn’t seen them.

Anya held her breath, waiting, till the
guard turned round the corner. She stepped out after Tavia and Nin,
who were making their way to a heavy glass door, which had to be
opened by punching in the right combination of numbers on a digital
lock. Anya nervously looked at the round, black globule situated in
the corner of the wall beside the door. She knew it could be
worse—it was probably the truly well-hidden, minute cameras that
she had to be concerned about.

“
Dresan’s got us covered,”
Nin whispered to Anya. Trusting him caused her to worry
less.

Tavia punched in a few
numbers, then slid the magnetic strip of a plain plastic card in
through the scanner at the right end of the lock. There was one
more step—she lifted her N-Gage device and let the lock scan a
hologram of the guard’s eye.
The 3D
eyeball hologram ID,
Anya
remembered.

The glass door swung open noiselessly. The
first step was a clean success, with no mishaps.

“
We should be thanking the
guard we saw outside,” Tavia whispered back to Anya, as she scanned
the magnetic strip through the lock on the door which had a “Fire
Exit” sign above. “We swiped his ID to make a copy.” Tavia waved
the card at Anya, then slipped it into the back pocket of her
skin-tight pants.

Anya was wearing soft, light sneakers.
Still, she tried to keep her steps as light as possible. Anya
looked out at the compound through a window. Fireflies hovered
around the light bulbs on the ground, which surrounded a small
pagoda at one side of the garden. It’d be the perfect make-out spot
for young lovers on an adventure together, in the dead of
night.

The trio made their way down some stairs,
and opened another door. Nin stepped up onto a chair and removed
one of the ventilation grills in the wall.

“
I’ll wait here, till it’s
time for my date with the head guard,” Tavia said in a low voice to
Nin and Anya. She replaced the cover once Anya had gone in after
Nin.

“
Follow me, and stay
close.” Five words were all of Nin’s instructions.

They crept forward on all fours, in the
confined, stuffy ventilation system. Anya tried to concentrate on
her upcoming task, instead of zeroing in all her attention on Nin’s
lithe, taut figure from the back. The latter did, however, make
crawling through the ventilation system more bearable for Anya.