Justice, page 12
JAILBROKEN
By morning, it seemed that sleep had won out, as M rubbed her eyes and yawned in the brightness of the sunlike walls. Her arms weren’t in shackles and Vivian didn’t let on if she suspected anything. Instead her roommate leaned over her and jerked back the covers, letting out all of the warmth M had collected during her sleep.
‘Up and at ’em,’ said Vivian with zero gusto in her voice. Her unexcitement made M’s heart pang for Zara and her wicked zingers. Somehow M had come to enjoy their verbal sparring and sisterly roommate relationship. While Zara had given M a spark every morning, Vivian was as ire raising as a houseplant.
But M couldn’t help wondering where that defiant version of Vivian, highlighted in her permanent record, was hiding. Sure, she had pulled some vicious Medusa action on M, but only when M had forced her hand. It almost felt like she’d been saving M from doing something stupid each time, rather than punishing her.
No, there was more to her boring direct than met the eye. M knew a play when she saw one, and the report she’d hacked was all the confirmation she needed.
Unfortunately whatever Vivian was up to would remain a mystery. Tonight, M was going to save her mother. There was no turning back. There was also no denying that for the rest of the day, M was most likely stuck training with Keyshawn. But when she and Vivian arrived at the lab to see Devon standing alongside M’s crew, she realized her day was going to be worse than she first thought.
Ben was back from his night of lockup and refused to make eye contact with her. Instead his intense gaze swept over the room, as if he were about to address a legion of soldiers. Keyshawn’s eyes were glued to his tablet. Devon, on the other hand, unleashed a cold stare that honed in on M like an arrow.
‘Mind if I play?’ Devon asked.
Ignoring Devon’s remark, Ben spoke with an authoritatively venomous tone. ‘There have been orders to speed up your training process. We do not know why, and we will not question why, but today, we will ramp things up. Noles?’
‘Thank you, sir,’ said Keyshawn, before turning to address the cadets. ‘You will be running the Maze again today, but this time you will have company.’
‘You’re not all going to chase us through the Maze, are you?’ asked Jules.
‘No,’ barked Ben. ‘You’re not the criminals; you’re the Fulbrights.’
‘Meaning it will be you chasing the more experienced directs,’ continued Keyshawn. ‘The goal is to keep us from escaping the Maze by any means necessary.’
‘By any means?’ repeated Cal, with a wink at Jules.
‘But remember that we will be armed and dangerous,’ said Ben. ‘You may be chasing us, but that doesn’t mean we won’t fight back.’
‘I like those odds,’ said Cal. ‘When can we get this show rolling?’
‘Ground rules first,’ said Keyshawn. ‘Almost anything goes in the Maze during this exercise. Magblasts, hand-to-hand combat, it’s all allowable. When you are in the field against a Lawless rogue, they will stoop to the lowest level to escape justice.’
‘What is that supposed to mean?’ asked M.
‘It means, watch your back when we’re in there,’ said Devon with a crooked smile.
‘How will we know if we win?’ asked Merlyn.
‘You win after you capture your target,’ said Keyshawn. ‘If you lose, well, it will be painfully obvious if you lose. Now take a minute to prepare, though there’s not a lot of planning involved. This is a test of instincts, stamina, and street smarts.’
The crew walked into the Maze room as Devon, Vivian, Ben, and Keyshawn huddled together and spoke in low voices, despite Keyshawn’s claim that no planning was necessary.
‘Not good,’ said Merlyn. ‘How did I get stuck having to capture the creator of our tech and the Maze course?’
‘At least you’re not chasing after a trigger-happy psycho,’ said Jules. ‘You remember, the one who put M in the deep freeze.’
‘Hey, you should have seen the hole my dad ripped in Ben’s still-beating heart the other night,’ said Cal. ‘Plus, Devon wants payback for what I did to her hair. I think I’ve got it the worst. How about you, M?’
‘Me?’ asked M, who hadn’t been paying attention to them. She was more focused on how to access the upper level and find her mom without getting caught.
‘Yeah, did you do anything to earn the righteous fury of Miss Personality over there?’ asked Merlyn.
‘Um, I shattered her knee once,’ answered M, ‘but it was a long time ago. She seems okay with me now.’
‘Wait, what?’ snapped Jules.
‘Long story,’ said M. ‘Listen, Merlyn, any luck with what we discussed earlier … about the suits?’
Merlyn’s eyes shot at her, then quickly scanned the room. ‘This is a risky time to bring up such a sensitive subject, but, yeah, I think I’ve got something you’re going to like.’
‘What are we talking about here?’ asked Cal.
‘No way,’ whispered Jules admiringly. ‘You hacked your suit, didn’t you?’
‘Not only that, I can rewire the comm links to give us our own private channel.’ Merlyn chuckled. ‘I mean, I kind of can’t believe it, but there was an opening in the suit’s configuration that allows for a bypass thread. It’s so small that it’s almost imperceptible.’
‘In English, please,’ said Cal.
‘It’s like the exhaust vent of the Death Star, a tiny flaw that makes the whole system vulnerable.’
‘How do you know if it works?’ asked Jules.
‘I tried it out yesterday while Keyshawn was in the lab,’ answered Merlyn. ‘It works and I can adjust your suits, too, if we can grab five minutes alone.’
‘Good luck there,’ said Cal.
M smiled. ‘We’ll find five minutes.’
‘What makes you so sure?’ asked Jules.
‘Let’s just say I’m feeling lucky,’ said M. ‘Now, what are you guys doing tonight?’
‘I was going to see a movie, maybe,’ joked Cal. ‘Why? What did you have in mind?’
‘I’ll tell you after we kick these Fulbrights’ butts in the Maze,’ said M.
‘Hello, old mysterious M,’ said Jules. ‘It’s good to have you back!’
The huddle of directs opened up and gave a resounding clap that echoed in the empty chamber. Then they each positioned themselves, spreading evenly across the width of the room.
‘Okay, our team will have a five-minute head start on you,’ said Keyshawn. ‘Remember, you must stop us from escaping … in three, two, one.’
With a crash, walls blinked shut and swallowed the four directs, who were now officially the targets. The Maze race was on.
‘And there’s your time frame, Merlyn,’ said M excitedly. ‘Get us in control of these suits.’
Merlyn pulled down the top of his suit and motioned to a small circuit board at the base of the neck. ‘Here’s what we’re looking for. This is the central nervous system of the suit. It connects your mask to the rest of your body.’
The others peeled down their suits, revealing their bright white Fulbright-issued undershirts. The circuit board was a microscopically tiny city of connecting tracks that bent and folded as effortlessly as cotton cloth. M had actually mistaken it for a button that clasped the suit together. She never would have found it.
‘Now,’ Merlyn continued, ‘one of these little wires is all you need to be free.’ He held up a plastic tube filled with what looked to be metal shavings.
‘I’m going to need a hand with this,’ said Cal.
Merlyn ran and grabbed a soldering iron from Keyshawn’s lab, and within two minutes he’d successfully implanted everyone’s new insert. ‘You see, this little piece acts as a bridge, allowing us to bypass outside commands. If anyone tries to Medusa us, the signal gets rerouted over the bridge. You get it?’
‘Not really,’ admitted Jules. ‘But you swear it works?’
‘On Albert Einstein’s grave,’ said Merlyn.
‘Good enough for me,’ said M, readjusting her collar. ‘How do we lose the trackers?’
‘Um.’ Merlyn paused. ‘That’s something I couldn’t quite figure out.’
‘Okay,’ said M. ‘But we can secure our own comm-link connection?’
‘Yeah, just tap here,’ Merlyn said, pointing to the right ear of his mask.
It was all coming together. M decided now was the perfect time to spring another surprise on the crew. ‘Great. So last night I snuck out and found my mother.’
‘You what?’ asked Merlyn, mouth agape.
‘I’ll show you tonight, when we all sneak out to save her,’ said M.
‘Sure, I’ll just sneak past Devon, the roommate who sleeps with both eyes open, waiting for me to step out of line so she can report me to whoever it is that you report people to around here,’ said Jules.
‘John Doe,’ said Cal.
‘Yeah, this Doe dude,’ said Jules. ‘And I personally don’t want to meet him.’
‘Look, we can do this. Trust me,’ said M. ‘Have I ever led you wrong before?’
It was the last thing M said to her friends’ faces before the walls erupted around them. She pulled on her mask and peered forward, looking for any sign of Vivian, but the coast was clear. The head start meant that Vivian would be totally far ahead in any other race, but in the Maze, M wasn’t worried. She plowed forward through the shifting walls and in no time she found a target. Unfortunately it wasn’t hers. A few yards to her left, Ben knelt down, facing the opposite direction, with his arm extended and Magblast ready.
Tapping her mask to switch channels, M heard an audible click, followed by the others’ slow breathing. ‘Cal,’ she whispered, ‘you’ve got an ambush waiting ahead. Ben is hiding low, waiting for you to turn the right corner.’
‘Thanks, M,’ came Cal’s response. ‘On it.’
She slid in the other direction, unnoticed, and continued her chase. As she turned a sharp corner, a blast rang out, sending her sliding backward to avoid the attack. The singed wall hissed where the blast had just narrowly missed connecting. Someone had aimed for her head.
‘Jules, I’ve got Devon this way,’ said M. ‘Err, well, she’s actually got me, so please swing around and give me some help.’
‘Always here to bail you out,’ said Jules.
As she stayed sheltered, M watched the walls shift again and again, slight movements that made her feel like she was at sea, the ocean lifting the world up and down at its own lumbering pace. But by staying in one place, M realized that the walls were doing a great bit of talking. She saw Vivian settled in for a surprise attack down a side path, before the path shunted from view. A minute later, she spotted Keyshawn on his stomach, slithering along a stretch of wall, ready to trip up any would-be pursuer.
‘Attention, everyone!’ said M. ‘It’s a trap. None of the targets are trying to escape. They are all prepping ambushes. And it looks like they know where we all are.’
‘How are they doing that?’ asked Jules.
‘It’s our trackers,’ said Merlyn. ‘They’re tapped into our trackers. This is a stacked playing field.’
‘That’s okay,’ M said confidently. ‘We can stack the field back in our favor. Everyone, Magblast your own arms just above the tracker.’
‘Are you crazy?’ Jules said.
‘Probably, but what other choice do we have?’ said M. ‘Keyshawn told me that the Magblasts might have an effect on the trackers. That’s why he checked us all the other day after our training session.’
‘Good enough for me,’ said Cal. ‘Everyone fire on three, two, one….’
M grimaced as she took aim and blasted her own arm. She felt a vibration surge through her suit. It was like a force field had enveloped her.
Suddenly Vivian screamed, ‘Keyshawn! What just happened? They disappeared. They all disappeared!’
‘Noles, scrub the exercise,’ called out Ben. ‘Use the Medusa effect on the Lawless cadets, now.’
‘It’s not working!’ hollered Keyshawn. ‘The suits aren’t responding.’
Merlyn’s patch had worked!
What happened next happened fast. Cal must have rushed Ben because there was a surprised shout from behind M. Confirming his target, Cal said, ‘Downing down. Coming to help you guys.’ But as he stepped closer to M, Devon let out a blast that knocked him back with enough force to crack the wall behind him. It shattered into particles of glass and dust.
‘What just happened?’ yelled Keyshawn, which gave away his location as easily as Devon’s blast had given away hers. Seizing the opportunity, M ran safely between them and hustled after Vivian, who had broken into a full gallop through the Maze. M could only catch glimpses of her target throughout the moving room. She struggled to follow until two walls parted and she darted down the new path. Suddenly M was on top of a very surprised Vivian, who crashed down underneath her.
‘White flag?’ asked M as she pinned Vivian against the ground.
A light flicked on in Vivian’s eyes, casting pure anger over M. It seemed she had finally woken Vivian’s slumbering Fulbright beast. With a surprising amount of power, Vivian swept her legs up and around M’s torso to flip her into the distance.
Smashing against a corner, M looked up just in time to see Vivian’s vicious karate kick aimed at her skull. She rolled, and the kick landed low on her shoulder instead, but the pain was intense. With an audible crack, her shoulder was knocked out of its joint. No sooner had the bones popped out, though, than the suit shoved them back into place with a second, more sickeningly audible pop, which burned as M parried Vivian’s follow-up attack. The two Fulbrights pushed and shoved each other into the walls, stumbling over themselves along the path until M finally landed a square shot to Vivian’s chest and sent her reeling backward. That gave M just enough time to fire a Magblast, which knocked Vivian’s legs out from underneath her. Both out of breath, they looked up and were shocked to find the Maze walls had shifted, revealing a way out.
But standing in the way was a shadowed figure leaning on a cane, which he clutched with an ashen gray hand. Wheezing, the man croaked with a British accent, ‘Both so close, eh? To winning. To losing. There’s a lesson here if you chose to learn it, I’d gather. For now, let’s call it a draw, shall we?’
M braced herself for the mystery man to cross the threshold into the Maze or for the light to reveal his face, but he simply hobbled out of sight with a click-tap from his cane and one shoe scuffing slightly behind the next. M stood and held out her hand to help Vivian up, but Vivian remained down.
‘What have you done?’ she whispered through her mask.
‘Me?’ said M, surprised at Vivian’s unmistakable trembling. ‘Hey, I just did what Keyshawn told me to do and caught you. Game over, I win. Now, who was that old geezer?’
‘John Doe,’ said Vivian, as if the name itself were cursed. ‘And now you’ve dragged me onto his radar.’
‘Isn’t that a good thing?’ asked M. ‘Like, isn’t it your job to be noticed by the top brass?’
‘Not by him, not like this,’ was all Vivian said before the walls started to buckle. Quickly and violently, the Maze walls retreated to reveal the others, frozen in place around the room like statues locked in epic battle poses, stunned by the sudden dismissal of the tight quarters around them.
‘Did we win?’ asked Cal, who pulled at Ben’s jacket.
‘You cheated!’ yelled Devon.
‘Didn’t think you’d mind, Devon,’ said Jules. ‘Isn’t cheating your bread and butter?’
‘They couldn’t have cheated,’ called out Keyshawn. ‘It must be a glitch in the suits. Everyone, give ’em over. I’ll take a look at them while your directs take you for the day.’
No! thought M. Keyshawn would definitely notice Merlyn’s handiwork. Underneath her mask, the blood drained from her face.
‘What’s wrong with her?’ Devon asked, motioning toward Vivian on the ground.
Forcing herself to act natural, M quipped, ‘She doesn’t like getting beaten by a rookie.’ The others hadn’t seen Doe, and from the severity of Vivian’s reaction, M figured his presence and comments were best kept secret.
As the targets and chasers eased back into being directs and cadets, the crew begrudgingly handed its uniforms over to Keyshawn and left to do whatever it was the rest of the Fulbrights did during the day.
CHAPTER 12
GLITCH
Data, data, data. Piles of data. Spreadsheets about spreadsheets of data neatly tucked into a folder marked DATA. This was apparently how Vivian Ware spent her days, in a sea of information, fishing for clues that might uncover a Lawless crime. Emails, newspaper clippings, phone call transcripts, social media sites, or photos from public cameras, the data piled higher and higher around M as she helped comb through paper after paper. For the first time she wished she were back in Keyshawn’s lab, ducking under Magblast fire or even back in the Box, jumping off a speeding locomotive. Anything beat sitting at this desk and sieving through random reports.
‘Aren’t there computers to do this stuff now?’ M asked Vivian.
‘It’s our job to double-check the computer’s findings,’ she answered civilly, but the cut above her lip reminded M of everything that had just happened between them in the Maze. ‘Computers miss things all the time. And computers can’t see the kind of crime we’re looking for.’
Leaning towers of paper from the FBI, CIA, MI6, Interpol, even old KGB files rose from M’s desk. She picked through pages on everything from missing paintings to bank robberies to jewelry heists to traffic violations and major contraband leads. ‘Lawless would have loved to have this much access to the good guys’ files. I guess it pays to be on the same team.’
‘Same team?’ laughed Vivian. ‘Freeman, Fulbrights work alone. These agencies, they only represent the law. We are the law.’
M didn’t like the sound of that one bit. ‘Wait, so you pull these reports without their permission?’
‘Ugh, we have to. They’re worse than the computers, as far as paying attention for Lawless discrepancies. We have to keep an eye on everything.’
