“Only marginally. Close calls, every one. And honestly, some of the decisions came down to other intangibles that are no longer relevant. Like compatibility and synergies working with other seasoned team members — most of whom are no longer free.” She shook her head and hugged her shoulders in the brisk morning air. “Everything has changed. Look up these people. Do it carefully, bring whoever will come. Find a neutral place, and then — refer to the objectives I wrote down there at the back of the file. Find out everything you can, and see the correlations, rule out the false images if you can — you know what they feel like, how false views can be identified.”
She nodded. “If it’s too easy, it’s probably false.”
“Right. Everyone shouldn’t see the same thing. Should be variations, subtle but important.”
“I know. That part I can handle. It’s the finding of these people. Getting them to trust me. Follow me.” She stammered, her breath fleeting, almost feeling a panic attack coming on. “I can’t… I’m shy, I’m the kid who always stood in the corner at parties or in the back, alone in class.”
“None of that matters now. You can do this.”
“How do you know?” Victoria said, exasperated. “I’m a toll-booth clerk, Look at me. No leadership qualities, nothing. Never finished high school, let alone started college. I got nothing, an apartment where I’m three months’ due on the rent. No boyfriend, almost no friends…”
“Now’s not the time to dwell on any of that,” Phoebe reassured her. “Now you’re called to step up and right a terrible wrong, and potentially save a great many people.”
“What about you? And who else is left?” She wanted to add: Do I have to see that horrible dream-maker man too? She had hoped she was done with him forever.
“The less you know the better,” Phoebe said, in a tone that also said: I’m not entirely sure myself.
Regardless, she knew her part, and here outside the place she had called her office for the past two years, the place that had given her some hope and some sense of belonging, she knew her life would never be the same. It had been a fleeting illusion, and this, now, was real.
“I’ll do what I can,” Victoria said at last.
“Then let me be the first to congratulate you,” Phoebe said. “And to welcome you into Stargate, and more importantly, into The Morpheus Initiative. Such as it is.”
6
Nina compared the face in the mirror to the one whose ID she had just appropriated from the unconscious woman in the second stall. Blended the makeup a bit more over her cheekbones, adjusted the hair — which she had already dyed to match the night before. Her target had been staked out, easy enough prey from social websites where the thirty-something bragged about her new administration position, making it seem like she was a junior spy, and any man should be intrigued enough to try to bed her.
A final touch up to her eyes, and she straightened her blouse and attached the ID badge to her jacket lapel. Swung the woman’s purse over her shoulder and headed out the door, smiling to another woman entering, juggling a cup of latte and a selection of files while talking on her Bluetooth earpiece.
First checkpoint passed easily enough. Simple ID scan and visual verification from two guards at the post, and one at the computer screen. A smile and a wink, and the men, she was confident enough, were not looking for minor differences in her features — if they were looking at her face at all.
Nina took long strides, swaying at just the right moments, confidently making her way to the elevator, and joining another crowd of early arrivers.
She had time. Maybe thirty minutes before the woman she was impersonating either woke up from her injected nap or was discovered. By then, even if the alarms were sounding, Nina planned to have her business concluded.
She passed the elevator and made for the stairwell. It wouldn’t grant her full access to the building’s restricted levels, but that didn’t matter. She had studied the blueprints, and like with any installation, especially Death Stars, there was a weak point, and she had found it. Just as she had found the likely area where the psychics were being held.
Normally, where she was going would be impossible except for a select few.
But Nina had connections. Especially one willing ex-commander of this very institution. A man who had, until recently ceding responsibility for its continuation to Caleb, run the entire Stargate program for some time. A man who was never quite comfortable in retirement, and was definitely unnerved by what had just been done to his legacy.
When Nina had come calling, Edgerrin Temple had been only too eager to help. He couldn’t lend any more assistance at the moment, knowing they would keep an eye on him because of past association, but he would be ready when the time came.
She followed the mental directions she had taken from him — with his assistance of course. He could have diagrammed the way down to the cells and interrogation areas, to the black sections not on any schematics, to the tunnels out under the city where detainees (and former psychics) were ushered in and out invisibly, but instead, he allowed her to just take the information from him. A touch, a caress. It was nothing sexual (at least for her, but Edgerrin couldn’t complain). Willing the right memories from his mind was far simpler than a lengthy debrief. Like a data dump, it all came out, everything she needed and what he had been willing to share.
“Save them,” he whispered after, in the dark bar in Georgetown the previous night. “I’ll do what I can from out here, but I’ll have to be careful.”
“You’ve done enough,” Nina responded, breathing heavily, taking it all in, absorbing the flood of visions. “I have what I need. I think.”
“Do you think Caleb’s there?”
Nina shrugged. All business still. “If it were me, no. I’d break up the leadership. Send them to different locations, but keep one or two here, along with the softer targets in terms of interrogation. If that’s what they’re planning.”
“Who knows what they’re planning?” Edgerrin said ruefully. “Or even who ‘they’ are. This is unprecedented, but not unforeseeable.” He said the last word slowly, leaving it out there like a piece of bait.
“I know, but their sight was compromised.”
He had let that stay out there before switching topics. “I know you didn’t want to come back to this, Nina.”
“Stop.” She had already stood, her back to him, business done, ready to leave and much to prepare. “When seclusion is no longer an option, when my son is a future target, then I have no choice.” She turned her head slightly, taking in the area. People were enjoying themselves at the bar. Shooting darts in the corner, watching basketball and laughing. Here in the back, the mood was darker.
“Go,” he said. “Do what only you can.”
The smile came to her face…
And returned now as she exited on the first sublevel, quickly turning and making for the service elevator where no one waited. It was quiet here before the early shifts, and from what she knew and could see — no cameras.
The doors opened, then closed with her inside, and in less than a minute — before someone finally called the elevator and it began to move, she had removed the hatch and wriggled up through the opening. Replacing the hatch just in time, she knelt in the dark atop the elevator car as it descended.
Pulled out the tiny flashlight from her handbag, and waited… One more level and there was her exit. Gripping the sides of the shaft, she scaled quickly and cat-like with the pen flashlight in her teeth. Found the ventilation shaft and made quick work of the screws.