Avatar is the property of people who aren't me. This work of fiction is not authorized by those people.
"Good morning, Doctor Walsh," his assistant said. "How was your weekend?"
"Not much different than any other consecutive sequence of days," Tom replied. The concept of a workless weekend was absolutely foreign to him. There had not been a weekend in the last thirty years where he had not worked. Regardless, Emily had asked him the same question every Monday morning for the last three years. If he had not personally reviewed her credentials before hiring her, he would have thought human resources had saddled him with a dimwit.
Emily also always had the same, cheery response. "Well, maybe soon you'll get a weekend off."
To which he would inquire, "Are you suggesting I'll die on a Friday?"
She grinned and replied, "'No one knows when that day or hour will come – not the angels in heaven, nor the Son, but only the Father.'" Emily was not a Believer. She just knew that quote drove him nuts.
"One day we'll fold space-time," he said, "and when we do, I hope we get to see the look on dear old Dad's face."
"If it looks anything like yours, Doctor, I think we'll have the best argument yet of keeping space-time unfolded." He gave her a cross look, but she did not provide any kind of defense. Instead, she smiled and said, "Remember, the Board meeting is in a half hour."
"I know," he said. "Same as it's always been. What do I have after that?"
"An update from Doctor Fairmont on Project Seven-Sixteen, then the research proposals board meeting at eleven."
"So after my morning meeting, I have more meetings."
"Correct."
"And you wonder why I have to get work done on weekends." He walked into his office before she could respond. "Thank you, Emily."
He sat down at his desk and activated the three screens in front of him. The central screen contained the programs he needed to conduct his work – or, as the day was falling together, issue orders in between meetings. To its left and right, he was receiving constant data streams from RDA's research stations around the globe. Every progress report, money transfer, and authorization for a new phase of experimentation came through to him.
It was not that he had the capability to keep track of every datum of information, but that he was expected to. Every so often, the chairman would call down to ask for an update on some obscure project that someone, somehow, had told him was either going awry or was of critical importance; and Tom was expected to pull that information up immediately.
In the meantime, his own projects would go forward in fits and starts. The only one he could keep on the chairman's radar was his wormhole research; but now there were so many collaborators, he was less in charge of the science and more in charge of managing personalities.
Tom pulled up his morning messages, which included the agenda for the chairman's meeting at the top of the hour. The first line read, "0800: Assessment of Efforts to Prevent Unauthorized Data Release – Dir. AMIS."
He knew when Krysta called him Saturday morning that she was not asking for a typical social call. They had never scheduled anything more than two weeks out, given the demands of their lives. He was thrown for a loop, however, when Abe produced a live Na'vi specimen. Had his heart not been almost totally reconstructed through genetic therapies, he might have keeled over from a heart attack. Knowing how much money had gone in to making the first avatar body, he could only imagine what the cost had to have been in order to convince Abe that it would be worthwhile to cajole a living Na'vi to come to Earth.
However, whatever talents Abe had used to bring the Na'vi to Earth had failed to convince Tom to be a willing co-conspirator. Even if he was relegated to managing personnel in the pursuit of research, he still had great sway in determining what projects went forward and what he could determine needed to be killed off. If that meant he never set foot in a lab to do hands-on work, he could accept it. It was also helpful that his legacy was strong enough to attract the researchers necessary to produce results faster than any other research conglomerate.
Still, there was one request which Tom was less able to refuse: that of continuing to watch over Abe's family. As his own son, his only child, had turned out to be such a disappointment to him – in no more way than in how he treated Krysta over the course of their brief marriage – it was his main source of pleasure to be able to help Natalie grow up, and to guide her interest in science. It would have been unconscionable for him to refuse such a request.
He reached into his suitcase and withdrew the storage device Abe had given him after their dinner on Saturday night. Tom was sure Abe knew full well that he would not refuse such an offer, and so would have manipulated the storage device to be a kind of Trojan horse. However, his scans at his home terminal had not resulted in any hits; and so he began the installation process shortly before departing for the Board meeting with Chairman Savage.
What Tom was not aware of, however, was that the carrier virus Abe had Dawn engineer on the chip would not activate until it detected an authentic, unfiltered RDA security key.
As Tom synched the storage device with his terminal and began to download the genuine financial information Abe had given him to keep safe, the underlying program began to search for access ports. Once identified, the program waited for users to input valid identification keys, which the program then transmitted back to Dawn, filtered through a worldwide network of servers which Dawn had spent most of the weekend hijacking and burying the code necessary to receive and forward the data mined by her program. This same network would also provide her with a formidable botnet to launch a diversionary cyberattack on RDA.
In addition to logging Tom's access information upon its download, in the half hour it took Franklin Ashworth to read the rest of RDA's leadership in on Abe's case, and outline the ways they planned to keep him contained, seventeen researchers with tier-one security access sent data feeds to Tom's terminal – all of their identification logged and reported by the program. By the end of the day, Abe would have four-hundred thirty-one top-tier security identifications.
Despite his refusal, Abe had made Tom a material partner in his scheme.
The last few mornings, the Scheller house seemed alive with nervous energy – whether for better or for worse, Natalie tried not to think about. This morning, however, it felt thick with tension. She was willing to believe it had more to do with her own early hours than anything else, but the solemn way in which her father had gathered everyone in the basement made it appear to her as though they were starting to succumb under the pressure of waiting ever-longer for their plan to come to fruition.
Unlike Natalie's last school session, she was committed to preventing her mind from wandering too far into these concerns. Whether or not she would have come to realize on her own just how improper it was for her to take advantage of Tseyo's kindness, the fact that Norm had to pull her aside to set her straight – and that she had been unable to stand up to his interrogation – helped to focus her mind.
Halfway through her second class, however, her concentration was broken as one of the kitchen windows shattered, followed soon thereafter by one of the cabinet's glass panes and two plates therein. The surprise of it all caused her to yelp, although she soon regained her composure. Vertex began barking furiously from upstairs; and by the time she was in the kitchen to get a preliminary sense of the damage, her father had come upstairs. "Are you all right?" he asked, one hand behind his back, as though he were holding on to something.
"I'm fine, Daddy," she said.
"What happened?"
"I'm not sure, yet." She followed the trail of destruction to the cabinet, and she reached behind a chipped glass. "It looks like a Title Nine."
Abe raised an eyebrow. "A golf ball?" Natalie nodded and held it out for him to see. "Those windows are supposed to be treated to resist golf balls."
She shrugged and pocketed the ball. "The contractor must have screwed you and Mom."
"Contractors always will," he replied with a grumble. "All right, it's not the end of the world, just…" he was interrupted by the phone ringing, and stepped around a corner while Natalie answered it.
"Scheller residence, this is Natalie."
It was the guardhouse. "Ma'am, we've received an alert to a possible break-and-enter. Are you all right?"
"Yeah, it was a golf ball through the window," she replied. "We're – I'm fine."
A keypad appeared on the screen. "Can you input your security code, please?" Natalie keyed in her birth-month and her mother's birth-year in reverse, and the keypad disappeared. "Thank you, ma'am. Are you sure you don't need someone to come up?"
"Positive," Natalie said. "But if the golfer doesn't come forward, could you—?" she broke off her sentence as someone knocked on the house's backdoor. "Never mind, I think. Thanks for checking in. I'll call if we need help."
The guard nodded. "Have a good day, Miss," he said, and then the call terminated.
Natalie went to the backdoor and pulled back the curtain to see a woman in business casual attire standing there, sunglasses hanging from the front of her shirt, golf bag in tow. She offered a nervous smile and wave, and then Natalie unlocked the door. She cracked it open just far enough to be able to carry on a conversation. "You wouldn't happen to have found a Title Nine, would you?" the woman asked.
"Yeah," Natalie replied. "I hope you're playing with a large handicap."
The woman winced. "I'm so, so sorry. May I come in to see the damage?"
Natalie hesitated. Even under normal circumstances, strangers were not welcome in the Schellers' house; under these circumstances, the idea seemed even more absurd. Her strong instinct was to close the door and send the woman on her way, but then she worried that doing so might arouse more suspicions than not. After all, who would consider it normal to be turned away upon confessing to damage?
The best answer she received to her dilemma was when she heard the basement door close. Natalie sighed and said, "You'll need to take off your cleats, first."
"Of course."
Natalie looked around as the woman untied her shoes. "Where's the rest of your group?"
"Oh, I'm playing alone today," she replied. She laughed and added, "I'm trying to get in some much-needed practice before this weekend. You know, get a feel for the course before I hold up the foursome."
"Maybe you should think about pushing your game back a couple more weekends," Natalie offered.
The woman kicked off her shoes, and Natalie stepped aside so she could enter. She turned towards the kitchen and winced again. "I got the cabinet, too?"
"If it'd gone in one of the glasses, I'd let you mark it on your card as a hole in one."
"Five," the woman corrected.
Natalie looked at her with raised eyebrows. "That's a par four hole – and you have another hundred yards to go."
She sighed. "Like I said—," she said with outstretched palms.
Natalie took pity on her and – somewhat – changed the subject. "Yeah, so, I guess we should exchange information."
"Oh, must we?"
Her question made Natalie feel uneasy. "Um, yeah. How else are we going to get you to pay for this?"
"Well, surely we could settle this like adults," she said as she reached into her pocket. Natalie was not sure why she felt panicked – maybe it was the woman's tone of voice – but she was ready to yell for her father at a moment's notice. It was not necessary, however, as the woman withdrew a checkbook. "What would you say this amounts to? Six, seven hundred?"
After taking a moment to regain her composure, Natalie replied, "My mom would kill me if I took money from someone who damaged the house without getting an estimate. I mean, yeah, I might say it's seven hundred, but maybe we can't get a contractor for less than a thousand – and then we have no way to call you to make up the difference."
The woman gave her a wry grin and said, "Well, aren't you a savvy young lady?"
Natalie felt a tinge of pride. "Mom runs her own business," she replied. "So, yeah. I've learned a couple of things."
The let out an unnecessarily deep sigh as she put checkbook away and said, "All right, let's exchange information." She pulled out a touch-screen phone while Natalie recovered her tablet from the couch and made the exchange. Afterwards, the woman, Bethany Adams, said, "So I should expect to hear from you in a couple of days?"
"Probably."
Bethany nodded. "Well, sorry again. I hope it's not too much to repair."
She walked out of the house, but Natalie caught up with her as she put her cleats back on. She took the errant golf ball from her pocket and said, "You know, this isn't regulation weight. It's a lot heavier."
"How would you know that?" Bethany asked.
"Because I live on a golf course," Natalie responded slowly.
"Ah," she said. "Well, as you've seen, I'm not very good. It's a training ball – heavier and smaller."
Natalie casually lobbed it at a high arc for Bethany to catch, and then offered, "Maybe consider another sport."
"Thanks," she said dryly, and then Natalie closed the door.
As Natalie set about sweeping up the broken glass, her father emerged from the basement. "Did she leave anything behind?" he asked.
"Huh?"
"That woman. Did she leave anything behind?"
"No. I got her information, and she left."
"Was she ever out of your sight?" he asked, his tone insisting an answer. "Did she touch anything?"
Natalie let out a short laugh. "Dad, what's wrong with you?"
"You can't just let people in here, Natalie," he said sternly.
"So what was I supposed to do, Daddy?" She said mockingly, "Tell her, 'Oh, hey, it's totally cool you broke our window. Have a nice day!'"
"I'm sure she'd figure we were well off enough to not get flustered over a window."
"Well we're not!" Natalie shot back as she stood up from the floor. "So I'm sorry that it didn't occur to me to play it like that. I'm not some awesome spy like you or Mom – or whatever it is you are."
Abe held his hands out, palms forward, in front of his chest. "Okay, I'm sorry," he offered. "We just can't afford mistakes at this stage, that's all I'm worried about."
"If she were one of RDA's goons," she asked pointedly, "why would she smash our window and leave? Why not just come in here and start shooting?"
"That's not—," he sighed and stopped himself before going further. "Among other things, it's a way to see if anybody's home. 'Innocently' smash a window, check to see if someone comes to the door. If not, you enter."
"Well, that's a stupid plan, because I was home." Natalie took a deep breath and said, "She didn't whip out a secret spy camera, or ask me about our daily routines, or slip me some truth serum. She was a shitty golfer who smashed our window and wanted to get off easy, okay?"
He did not appear at all convinced, but he also did not appear at all willing to make a fight out of it. "All right," he said. "Do you need help cleaning up?"
She shook her head. "No, thank you. I can take care of it – then I need to get back to class. I'll call Mom later and let her know."
"Okay," he said with a nod, and then he turned towards the basement. "Just be careful, that's all I'm asking."
Natalie waited for him to close the basement door, and then she quietly replied, "You too."
Abe had to see it for himself, but there was no denying that the route he had intended for them to take was severely flawed.
The team sat around the tabletop holoprojector, into which he had transferred the building's floorplans, and they did a floor-by-floor search of the best alternate route. Tseyo observed them from a distance. When Norm and Dawn were earlier unable to explain precisely in his language what it was that they were doing, he seemed to pick up Abe's irritation that the constant translating was slowing down progress and stayed quiet.
Abe followed their original route. "So you can get up to the first mezzanine without a problem," Abe said. The others nodded.
Bay Point Tower, the pinnacle of RDA's headquarters campus, was on the outside a cragged, half-mile spire of steelwork. Within that frame, it was a glass-enclosed concrete spiral which was divided into four sections. The first section was a public mall which the public accessed from a tunnel access at the adjacent Union Square. However, the loading docks and underground maintenance were all RDA property; and ringing the mall were a number of employee-only entryways to access the rest of the building.
In order to prevent precisely the kind of security breach Abe and his team were planning, where someone might plan an infiltration from the loading bay, the freight elevators stopped one floor below the first mezzanine level – a garden which separated the top floors of the mall from the main office complex. From the freight elevators, they would have to cross through a checkpoint to access a bay of employee passenger elevators.
Abe's original plan had called for them to use the employee elevators to express up to the top levels of the tower. However, "Tseyo can fit if he crouches down," Matthew said. "But almost nobody else can fit in with him. Maybe Norm could. The rest of us would be sitting around waiting for the guards to pick us up."
On the other side of the floor were maintenance elevators. They were tall enough to accommodate Tseyo – if he leaned against the ceiling – and most of the team, but they started at the subbasement level, shared by both maintenance and one of four security barracks on the sprawling RDA complex.
"Okay," Abe said. "Let's assume you do make it over there."
The second section of the spiral was reserved for RDA's lower administrative functions – clerks, auditors, and technical specialists. The maintenance elevator could take them through this level, but then would have to stop at the mezzanine as the spiral tapered inward.
"This is where the security program would usually have the guards come up and bust us," Luke said. "They'd just turn one of the maintenance elevators into an express elevator from the subbasement, and they'd be on top of us."
"How long would that take?"
"Five or six minutes," Luke replied with a shrug. "Assuming the guards at the loading dock trip the alarm as soon as we jump out of the van, which is a fair assumption."
"Okay, so let's say you're able to get there in four minutes and they don't get there for six," Abe said. "How long does it take you to get to Maintenance A?"
The third section, which housed RDA's mid-managers and program support offices, would allow the team to transfer to a dual maintenance-passenger elevator bay, which was in fact the tower's primary elevator bay. However, it was on the direct opposite side of the loading dock elevator bay.
"Less than a minute," Amy said. "But security would also use that one, so we were more likely to arrive there at the same moment they did than to get by them."
"What if you went to that elevator bay first and avoided the whole transfer to begin with?" Abe asked. "Did you try that?"
"We tried it two ways," Matthew replied. "We tried it as soon as we left the loading bay's freight elevators, but there were too many guards at that level to punch through. Then we tried going through the basement, from the loading bay direct, but security was always right behind us."
"But did it work?"
Matthew shook his head. "We could get to the fourth section, yes, but security would always be in an adjacent elevator to unload right behind us. We could never get to the final elevator bay to meet up with you."
The tower's crown fourth section housed RDA's upper management. It was here that Abe would collect his old investigation records, and from there the group would go confront Savage at his penthouse on the top floor.
Abe took a deep breath, followed by a long sigh. "So in order for this to work, in addition to either sixty percent of the guards absent or all of them confused, you need a solid two minute space between your movements and the guards', am I right?"
They nodded, and he frowned.
"What about disabling the elevators we aren't using?" Norm asked. "I mean, it's a favorite tactic in the movies, and it would sure as hell slow them down."
"That's because it's a Hollywood myth," Abe replied. "The computers which run the tower's mechanics are completely compartmentalized. There's no way to access them either directly from the Internet, or indirectly through the employee servers. It's so no teenager can get his rocks off by tripping every sprinkler system in the building."
"That just means we can't hack them," Luke said. "There has to be a control station."
Abe nodded, and returned to the basement floors. Mapping the route with his finger, he said, "If you went from the loading dock along this corridor to get to the primary maintenance elevator, you would divert down this hallway, and the control room is here."
"Yeah, but we're never going to get in the control room and then out again to ride the elevators," Amy said. "Security would either trap us, or they'd reactivate the elevators behind us."
"So someone has to barricade themselves inside," Abe replied. "It would keep an element of security preoccupied while the rest make it upstairs."
"You're really into sacrificing us one at a time, aren't you?" Matthew asked with a wry grin.
"We don't even know if it'll work," Dawn said.
"That's the point of the virtualscape," Abe said, pulling up a display of the program's scripts. "Let's assume that the controls are intuitive for whomever does go in – or that you persuade whoever is in there to our cause. Dawn, can you write a script?"
She nodded; and while she worked on entering that into the simulation, Matthew said, "You still haven't said who that person's going to be. We're already losing one person in this prisoner transfer – also undecided – and I'm going to guess that whomever the Soldiers pair with you is not going to be a willing sacrifice."
Abe frowned and said, "All right, here's the reality. Norm needs to be with Tseyo at all times. Dawn is going to be here to run our control and the cyberattack. So that leaves the Colonel, Luke, and yourself as either the possible trade or – let's say – the solo operator."
"I should be in the control room," Luke said. "I'm going to guess that I have the most mechanical experience of the three of us."
"I'd guess you're right," Abe replied. "So that just leaves the transfer." Amy and Matthew looked at each other, and after a few moments of silence, they both shook their heads and looked at Abe. He grinned and said, "I'm disappointed with your enthusiasm."
"It's hard to get fired up about being handed over to psychopaths," Amy replied.
"Someone has to go."
"Why?" she replied. "C'mon, Abe, you know what's going to happen. If we survive the mission, I really doubt that we'll be in the position to casually stroll out of the complex and make the exchange. If we do, they'll just light us up once we make the second exchange. They get everything they want – the downfall of RDA, vindication of their imprisoned compatriots, and your death."
"I'm sure that's what they're thinking," he said. "I'm also sure you're right about another thing – none of us are going to casually walk out of Bay Point, which means they won't get the exchange at all."
"That doesn't sound helpful," Matthew muttered.
Abe took a deep breath and leaned against a wall to weigh his options. They needed the Soldiers of Gaia to distract the main force of RDA's security. Attempting this operation without that element would be wholly unsuccessful. He thought aloud, "They aren't going to give me someone high up the chain, either. They'll say he is, but that'll be bullshit."
The others nodded. "What if we don't reveal the unobtanium conspiracy?" Norm asked. "I mean, what we're doing alone won't take down RDA, it'll just stop the attack on Pandora – maybe. That doesn't do the Soldiers any good."
Abe nodded. "If we give the information to a third-party, or say we do, and demand the release of their hostage as a condition of its exposure, we might get our teammate back." He shrugged. "I can't say it's a terrible idea, not unless someone else has something better."
Matthew sighed and said, "I doubt it. However, if that's the plan, then I guess I'd be okay with being on the exchange."
He raised an eyebrow. "Are you sure?"
"It's better than nothing."
Before he could offer anything further, Dawn looked up from her work and said, "Script's ready."
"Then let's test it," Abe said. "Doctor Cook, you'll play Tseyo again, since you're no longer a participant. Dawn, you run control. Luke, you're on for the control room. Let's make this as close to reality as possible."
Their first run failed when Luke got lost in the basement corridors, and their second failed when he was unable to make the barricade hold. However, on the third attempt, the team was able to make it to the fourth section before being overcome by the guards. On each attempt thereafter, as their coordination improved, they made ever greater strides ahead of the mimicked security force, even as Abe and Dawn modified the simulation's parameters to improve the security's response time.
For the first time in days, Abe felt a little less crazy.
There was a reason she always did her assessment meetings in public places: Her client was not taking the news well.
Krysta's client had hired her to investigate a significant attack on his company that resulted in several hundred-thousand customers' accounts being compromised, in addition to several tens of millions of dollars stolen in mid-transaction. Rather than get the FBI involved and risk having the attack exposed for his customers to know, the company turned to her.
"This is ridiculous," the executive said as he paged through the report. "There's no way we have this many vulnerabilities."
"There absolutely is," Krysta replied. "You haven't adequately invested in your IT department in eight years. Do you know how many lifetimes that represents in the IT world? A six-year-old could get by you."
He dropped the tablet on the table, causing the glasses and silverware to clink against each other. "You're just gunning for a bigger contract, aren't you?" he said accusingly. "Let me guess," he said with a sneer, "You have a great subcontractor all lined up to repair our vulnerabilities."
"No, Mister Beckley, I don't," she replied flatly. "I'm only involved in security consulting, and I'm consulting you to plus up your budget – significantly. Whether or not you do it is your own problem."
"Yeah, we'll see about that," he said under his breath. "What about the breach itself? What do you have on that?"
Public places or not, Krysta never met with clients alone. In this case, her personal security also happened to be her information-technology forensics expert. He handed the executive his report, but summarized it nicely. "Your wife."
"What?!"
"You didn't tell us you owed a few thousand bucks in child support," he continued. "I guess she got tired of waiting for the courts to come down on you, and so told your six-year-old son he could have a new bike if he just did this one thing for her."
"She's living in the Oakland slums," the spurned executive replied. "It's not possible."
"Greg's work is impeccable," Krysta said, deciding not to educate her client about the myriad of ways it was possible for a single mother exiled to the projects to gain access to the technology necessary to breach his inadequate security infrastructure. "If that's what he says, you should listen."
Her client once again dropped their report on the table, followed soon by his napkin. He stood and said as he briskly walked away, "I'll kill her. Goddammit, I'm going to kill her."
Greg chuckled and said, "I don't think he's going to pay his share of lunch."
"As long as he pays us," Krysta replied as she sipped on her tea, "I don't care that I have to pick up some imitation tuna."
"What's his total?"
"A bit over four-hundred."
He nodded slowly and said, "That's not terrible for six weeks of work." He took a sip of his coffee and then asked, "I know we have a confidentiality agreement, but shouldn't we at least make an attempt to tell someone that a very, very pissed CEO is threatening – and likely – to kill his ex-wife?"
Krysta shook her head. "We don't have a duty to report," she said. "But more than that, if we break the contract, we definitely won't get paid. Besides, he might do a good enough job of it that her surviving family will hire us to investigate. That's another thirty, or forty if we drag it out. Likely he won't, though, and we'll just get our cut out of his estate while he rots in jail."
Greg laughed loudly enough to turn other patrons' heads. "You never miss an opportunity, do you?"
"It's served me well so far."
"Speaking of opportunities," he said, scooting his chair closer to her and leaning in close, "given any more thought to my offer?"
"I've thought about it for a while, Greg, and the answer is still, 'No.'"
Krysta had known the systems expert from her time at RDA, but not because he was a colleague; far from it, he worked at one of RDA's competitors. They crossed paths most frequently when she suspected him of being behind a breach of RDA's security. Once Abe took over AMIS, they kept in touch by virtue of the fact that Greg would complain about RDA's suspected attacks on his company.
Greg was married, but he was well aware that his wife was cheating on him with another partner of her law firm. In turn, he seduced women every chance he could get, and Krysta was positive his wife was aware of this. Krysta often wondered if it could be properly considered cheating if both spouses were both cognizant and permissive of the infidelity of the other.
The plasma had barely dissipated from Abe's ISV when he called on her, and he had persisted ever since. "You still have another year before Abe gets back," he said with a grin. "Just once. One time, and you'll make me a happy man."
Normally, Krysta would either casually rebuke him or make outright threats against his physical ability to continue on with his adultery. After this morning, however, she was in the mood to do neither. "Let's just table it for now, Greg. It's going to be a long day."
His eyes and grin widened. "I detect progress," he said.
"Hardly," she replied with a snort.
"We're in a hotel," he pressed. "We can pay our bill, check in, and get this off the table before our next meeting. It won't interrupt our day at all."
She sighed and gave him a crosswise glare. "Greg, if you want your share of this last contract, I suggest you shut the fuck up."
He leaned back in his chair and scooted away, a full smile on his face. "That's more like you." He put his napkin on the table and stood. "Anyway, before we move to our next meeting, I have to piss. Be right back."
Krysta just shook her head, and he walked away from the table, winking at a young waitress along the way. Shortly after Greg disappeared into the restroom, Krysta's phone rang from her purse. She dug it out with the intent of turning it off; but when she saw that the call was from Natalie, she set the phone upright on the table and connected the video chat. "What's up, Sweetie?"
"There was a bit of an accident," her daughter replied.
Krysta's heart skipped a beat. With all the things that could possibly go wrong at her home, from her husband's covert activities to Natalie's health, she feared the worst. "Are you okay?"
"Yeah, I'm fine," Natalie said. "Someone broke our kitchen window, though."
Her pulse quickened. "Did you call the guardhouse? Do I need to come home?"
"It's not like that. It wasn't a break-in, it was a golfer."
"That's not possible," she replied. "Our windows are treated for that."
Natalie chuckled. "Apparently not. That, or the woman was using a driver to get her ball out of the rough."
Krysta frowned. "Natalie, I've taught you better than to stereotype – especially women," she said sternly.
"I'm not stereotyping, she came by to give her information."
She became worried. "You didn't let her in, did you?"
"Of course I did," Natalie replied plainly. "I mean, I couldn't just turn away a person who broke our window and not raise suspicions."
"That's why we have guards, Natalie," Krysta said with a sigh. "You can't let people we don't know in the house, especially now."
"Mom, think this through for a second."
Krysta sighed again, but she obliged her daughter. It soon became apparent to her why her daughter's standing orders were no good in this case. Having guards roaming the house to look for any further vulnerability would end poorly. "I get your point," she said grudgingly. "But she did she say anything unusual? Was she ever out of your sight?"
"No and no. I mean, she wanted to pay and get out of here, but I told her we'd get an estimate."
She was not terribly happy with the situation, but she did not see much else that Natalie could have done. "All right, give me a second." Krysta dug a pen from her purse and grabbed an unused paper napkin from the empty fourth seat of her table. "What's the person's information? I'll call her later." She also fully intended to run this person through her databases of private investigators.
"Bethany Adams. Two-zero-four-one-five, of course."
"Of course."
"Five-five-five, four-one-zero-nine."
Krysta frowned. Adams was one of the forty most common surnames in the country, and Bethany? Beth? Those had to be in the top two-hundred most common first names. Even if she kept her search narrowed to the San Francisco area, or California, she would get back dozens of matches; which assumed this person was amateur enough to not assume an alias. Further still, even the worst private investigator would not use her alias on official documents. That would only come to light through criminal records, if police were able to pick up on it. How many Beth Adams' were in criminal databases?
"Thank you," she said. Still worried, however, she pressed, "Are you sure I don't need to come home?"
"I'm positive."
"Okay. Just, in the future, give me a call first so I can speak with the person."
Natalie grinned and replied, "The next time a golf ball comes careening through the kitchen, I will keep that in mind."
Krysta feigned an indignant eye roll. "See you later, Sweetie."
"Bye, Mom." Natalie hung up, and Krysta put her phone away.
In the meantime, her thoughts turned to what they had been all day in the moments she had to herself – the morning's fight. Krysta was certain that Abe had gone off the reservation. In all of his schemes, even the most daring ones, he never tried to push odds like the ones facing him now. Worst of all, his motivation remained unclear to her.
Even though he had confessed to a large amount of self interest in this plot, she could not help but worry that he had turned soft on the Na'vi. Krysta could understand wanting to go after Savage, or even the governments who kept him afloat. The Na'vi, however, were inconsequential. Had they not stopped revering humans as kinds of demigods – or demons, as their language suggested – Abe would never have been sent to Pandora.
She might have been able to ignore that had Abe not brought back one of the aliens. His presence was a constant reminder to her of why things had turned so far south so quickly for her and Natalie. Worse than Abe's sacrifices on the Na'vi's behalf was Natalie's continued reverence for them. Their attitudes together had made Krysta feel like the last sane person in her house.
Greg returned from the bathroom, snapping her out of her thoughts. "Have we gotten our check, yet?"
Krysta shook her head. "I haven't seen the waiter."
He looked like he was about to say something, but then he noticed the napkin she had jotted on. He took it from in front of her, and then asked, "Are we getting contracts out East, now?"
"Excuse me?"
Greg took another look at the napkin and corrected himself. "Never mind," he said with a shake of his head. "San Francisco area code."
"Back up," she insisted. "Why did you think I was taking a contract on the East Coast?"
"Name's familiar," he replied flatly. "A few years ago, we 'non-disclosure agreement' to resolve a 'non-disclosure agreement' in New York, and hired someone by that name." He grinned and finished his censored tale by saying, "NDA, NDA, NDA, and everything worked out. The sex was pretty good, too."
Krysta scoffed at his flourish, but pressed on. "But her name was Bethany Adams."
"I think she just went by Beth – no." He paused to think. "No, her actual name was Jewel, I think. Or maybe it was June." Greg shrugged. "Beth Adams was the 'official' name, though."
Her stomach turned in knots. "Goddammit," she muttered, withdrawing her phone again.
"What's up?"
"Natalie called. She was at my house this morning."
Greg let out a short laugh and said, "Krys, there are a billion people in this country, and that has to be one of the most common names around."
Krysta was not going to be convinced. However, as she was about to dial her home to raise the alarm, she had another thought. "You said you slept with her?"
He grinned. "Oh yeah. She set the standard for, like, two years thereafter."
"I just needed the first part," she replied flatly. "Do you think you'd recognize her again?"
"Definitely," he said with an emphatic nod.
Krysta dialed the number Natalie gave her. Adding to the case against this woman, her phone display informed her that the dialed number did not have video capability, meaning it was likely a disposable phone purchased locally. After a few rings, a woman picked up. "Hello?"
"Hello. Is this Bethany Adams?"
"May I ask who's calling?"
"Miss Adams, my name is Krysta Scheller. My daughter called me with your information a little while ago. I believe you owe me a new window."
"Oh, yes!" Bethany said. "Yes, I'm so sorry about that."
"These things happen," she replied. "So, I understand my daughter sent you away until we could get an estimate for the repair."
"Yes. She said she learned from you."
Krysta could not help but smile a little bit. "She's smart enough on her own. Anyway, with the air quality about to turn for the worse this week, I'd like to get it fixed quickly."
"Well now, that changes things," Bethany replied hesitantly. "I mean, I admit fault, but I don't want to get gauged for it. Perhaps an estimate is best."
Either the woman was doing her utmost to feign naïveté, or she really was just a poor golfer. "I understand, but like I said, these things happen. We do live on a golf course after all. I'm sure I could find the estimates from the last time this happened, and we can come to an agreement based on that."
"And the cabinet?"
Natalie had neglected to mention that, but Krysta had a quick response. "I've been wanting to replace the cabinets for a while. This is a good excuse to."
"Oh," Bethany said. After a moment's pause, she asked, "Do you want to meet somewhere, or—?"
"Why don't you come back to my place? Scene of the crime, if you will. We can go over what needs to be done and settle it there."
There was another pause. "Sure, that sounds fine. Can I come by tonight? I'll be busy most of the rest of the week."
"At the driving range, I hope." Bethany gave a polite, if not slightly curt, laugh in response. "Tonight would be fine. Say around six?"
"Six it is," she replied. "Well, great. I'm glad we could connect, and I'm sorry again for the inconvenience."
"Not a problem at all," Krysta said politely. "I'll see you this evening."
"Yes. Goodbye."
"Bye." Krysta hung up the phone and turned to Greg. "Did she sound familiar?"
"She sounded like a woman," he said with a shrug. He took a breath and said, "So you suspect that she's a contract-for-hire, but you're inviting her over to your house." Krysta nodded. Greg chuckled and asked, "Are you sick?"
"She smashed my window," Krysta replied. "Natalie was right. If we tried to push her away, she'd probably take that as a good hint that she was on to something – or that we were on to her, and she'd change her M-O. I'm just doing the same thing back to her. If she had turned down the offer to come over, I certainly would have figured something was up."
Greg leaned back in his chair. "That's a dangerous calculation," he said frankly. "What would she be investigating you for anyway?"
Krysta shrugged. "Savage may have some idea of another way to screw us," she replied. "Who knows?"
He frowned. "Well, I don't know that I'd have done the same thing, not without knowing for sure who I was dealing with."
She nodded and replied, "I was actually hoping you'd be willing to help with that." Krysta grinned and added, "How would you like to finally come over to my house tonight?"
There were only so many virtual reality simulations Abe could force his team to run before they needed to ground themselves in the real world. As morning gave way to afternoon, he gave everybody the rest of the day to relax in anticipation of the long day tomorrow.
Vertex, his daughter's dog, lazily rested at his feet. He had been locked in Abe's study for most of the time since Abe's return, and at first he was reluctant to let Abe work peacefully. However, after Abe offered a few scratches behind the ears and a prolonged belly rub, Vertex was content to let him be.
However, he had some final affairs to get in order before he could take the same luxury. The first was to be confident that Dawn could navigate RDA's complex cyber security web without getting caught and, as important, set the stage for tomorrow's assault.
His second order of business was to ensure that he would not be stopped at the door and have to join the rest of the team in the long, treacherous slog through RDA's complex.
"How are we doing?" Abe asked from his worktable while putting the final touches on his forgeries.
"Either they have no idea I'm in," Dawn replied, "or they know and are letting me poke around in order to figure out what I'm doing. I'm assuming the latter, since I'm pretty sure RDA still values having top-talent in its cyber division, so I'm just trying to create some diversions."
Abe nodded.
His last order of business was much more personal. He had situated Dawn to run the mission's control from the house for more than the safety of their connection, but he had waited to fill her in on her secondary role so she could concentrate on her primary mission.
He took a breath and turned in his chair. "I need you to do something for me."
Dawn looked up from her tablet. "What's that?"
"If tomorrow falls apart, I need you to get Krysta and Natalie out of here."
She shifted uncomfortably in her chair. "Boss—," she began with a sigh. "Boss, it's not going to help anybody if you start worrying about the worst case scenario at this stage. It's best to assume the mission's going to work out."
"I've had no shortage of people give me the impression that it won't," he replied with a chuckle. "So it's hard to shake."
"This is a bit crazy," she said. "Still, at some point you just need to put on your game face and let things happen as they're going to."
"I don't disagree, but if this happens, I want there to be a plan in place to deal with it."
Dawn took in a deep breath and let out a heavy sigh. "All right, what do you have in mind?"
"Well, first, you're probably going to have to actually force them out. Krysta won't leave here willingly, not after everything she's done to keep the place."
"Hold a gun to your wife's head – check," she said with a grin.
He was not so amused, but he did not think it best to snap at her. "Second, she should have some emergency funds stashed away. I'll make sure they're accessible to you before we go."
"And to what exotic locale am I herding your family?"
"Berlin."
She frowned. "No offense, Boss, but I figured a guy like you could afford a slightly better hideout than Berlin."
Abe did let himself smile at that. "Probably, but there are two reasons for Berlin. One, you can get there quickly on the high-speeds out of San Francisco. Second, Krysta and I have a mutual friend there who can keep her and Natalie under the radar until the worst of Savage's rage blows over."
"And me?"
"You shouldn't be on Savage's hit list," he said, "so you can take whatever's left of the emergency fund and go wherever you want."
"If it's only fifty bucks…"
"I'm sure Krysta will supplement," he interrupted.
They were quiet for a few moments, and then she shook her head. "You're asking a lot."
"If we're talking candidly—," he waited for her to nod in response before continuing on. "This is more important to me than the mission. I'll consider tomorrow successful only if my family is safe at the end of it."
Dawn leaned back in her chair. "Candidly, I don't think everybody would be thrilled to know that you're using them just to protect your own, myself included. I mean, we have – or, I guess after eleven years, had – families, too."
"I suspect you all have your own reasons for coming this far," he replied. "Norm and Luke want to keep the Na'vi safe. Doctors Patel and Cook want to get Doctor Augustine's work out to the public. Colonel Hall is obviously still in love with Norm—," he held up his hands. "I don't see why, but okay."
She crossed her arms and grinned. "Got us all figured out?"
"It's my job," he said with a shrug. "You, though, I'm not entirely sure of."
"I left everything behind to go to Pandora," she said. "Coming back without anything to show for it probably would have driven me over a cliff, so I'm hoping this will make putting my life on hold worthwhile."
"And if it's not?"
Dawn lightly shook her head. "I don't know," she replied. "It doesn't seem like there'll be much of a life possible being on RDA's shit list. I mean, there goes re-enlistment at a minimum."
"There are twenty billion people on this planet," he said. "They can't go after everyone, contrary to popular belief." Abe chuckled and said, "Believe me, even RDA doesn't have the resources to do that."
"They don't have to come after me," she replied. "If they block me from going anywhere, that's enough."
"You've seamlessly infiltrated one of the most advanced cyber security networks in the world, and yet you couldn't, say, make a new identity for yourself to avoid that?"
"I've worked hard on this identity," she replied with a scowl. "Yeah, I could do it, but I'd hate myself for it. It would be a constant reminder that they won."
"I guess that's fair," he said with a nod. "Anyway, will you take care of this for me?"
"Yeah," she replied. "I mean, if you're caught, I'll have to run anyway. We might as well all go together."
After the Sky People left the burrow, Tseyo turned his attention to his personal project.
He finished grinding down the flower petals he'd brought with him into coarse, pigment powders, and then rummaged through the small pile of items he had brought with him from home. Tseyo took two pouches of riverbed sand, the whitest he could find nearest where the waterfall was wearing away the underlying stone, and carefully, evenly added their contents to the pigment as filler.
Tseyo delicately transferred his materials into the washing nook, where he needed a moment to recall how Norm had made the water appear. The first knob he turned produced a cold river which, though he would loathe bathing in, suited his craft. He was about to plug the basin with strips of cloth when he noticed a black rock resting on its corner that looked to fit the hole at the basin's base perfectly. He was surprised by how soft and pliable it was when he picked it up, but he was pleased that it did, in fact, stop the river water from draining away.
As the basin filled, he took a large, bi-chambered seed and cut it lengthwise. Tseyo scooped out the dried-out, starch-like material from each chamber and discarded the contents in a pile on the floor. It occurred to him that if he were home, he would be able to make a decent flatbread from the excess.
Once the basin had filled enough to his liking, he turned the knob to stop the water's flow, and then Tseyo carefully dipped the empty seed chambers into the basin. He stopped when each was about half-full of water, at which point he added back a portion of the discarded starch. Tseyo used his hands to mix the solution, breaking apart lumps as they appeared.
From the meals he had been invited to sit on, he figured that the fire he needed to continue was kept upstairs. Although he was under orders to stay in this space unless summoned, he was feeling defiant. After all, it had been made clear to him that he was a critical part of T'ngyute's scheme, so he did not feel particularly threatened by potential consequences for his insubordination.
Balancing the two seed halves on his left arm, he made his way up the stairs and opened the door to the main living space. Most of the group was seated about the dining table, and Natalie was casually relaxed on the long, padded and backed stone bench, distracted by the squared stone that seemed to be ubiquitous to Sky People.
They all, however, turned in near unison when he emerged, and all appeared too surprised to say anything. He responded to their silent questions, "I've seen enough of your customs. It's time for me to show you some of mine."
Natalie sat upright and asked, "What are you talking about?"
"We're going to make paint," he said flatly, indicating the seed halves on his arm. "But we need fire to do it."
Norm emerged from a nearby room. Though he appeared as though he were just napping, he did not waste a moment to ask, "What are you doing up here?"
"I've spent enough time hidden away," Tseyo said. "If we are fighting tomorrow, I don't want to spend today alone."
"Tseyo, it's for your safety," Norm said. "If someone sees…"
"Who's going to see me?" he interrupted, looking around the home. "All the spaces are covered. I know you need to hide me when we're outside, but now I'm safe."
Either Norm's heart was not committed to an argument, or Tseyo was as persuasive as he had hoped. Norm rubbed the back of his neck and said with a sigh, "You need a fire?" Tseyo nodded, and Norm walked in front of him. "It's back here."
Where Norm was cautiously reserved, Natalie was plainly intrigued. She stood up, setting aside her stone, to follow them into the preparation area.
Tseyo set his seed halves on the large, raised stonetop in the center of the cooking area, and then sat on the floor. He looked about the stone for the fire's fuel source, but then Norm whistled to get his attention. He grinned and said, "The fire's over here, Tseyo." He turned a black knob on a bright, white stone and, after a series of clicks, a small blue flame emerged.
He was both impressed and confused. Tapping on the stone in front of him, he asked, "So what's this for?"
"Preparation," Natalie said patiently. "But we cook over where Norm is."
Tseyo nodded slowly, and then shifted around the preparation stone to sit beside Norm. He took the seeds, looked at Natalie, and said, "The mix in here needs to be heated to become firmer."
He was about to place the seed atop the fire, when Norm stopped him. "I know that's how you do it," he said with a grin, "but the burning smell of the seed is too acrid for our noses."
"Then do you have a bowl?" He gave Norm a wry smile and asked, "Or would you prefer to boil the water in your hands?"
Norm chuckled before he turned to Natalie. They exchanged a few words in their native language, and then she opened a compartment beneath the preparation stone. She withdrew four large, metallic and cylindrical bowls. "These are a bit better than clay bowls," Norm said.
He let out a short laugh and shook his head. "I shouldn't be surprised you have something better."
They carefully transferred the starchy mixture into the four containers, and then set them on top of an equal number of fires. It took him a moment to adjust to managing four fires, as opposed to the one fire pit as he was used to. While the technology was new to him, he was able to control the consistency in each container.
Natalie and Norm, on the other hand, seemed to be frustrated when they would ask questions about measurements of ingredients and he would give them such responses as "a pinch" or "when it looks right."
When the starchy mixtures became more viscous, he sent Natalie down to recover the crushed leaves he would use for pigments. When she returned, he took the containers off their fires – which Natalie quickly extinguished by turning the knobs – and then prepared to mix in the pigments.
"Was there any special reason why you chose these colors?" she asked.
"Yes," he said, explaining each before putting them into the mix. "This red is for the blood my people have shed. Yellow is the color of those who have undergone Iknimaya. Purple is to honor my spirit animal, tsì'ikran. And black—," he finished with a shrug. "It helps us hide in the shadows when we are on a long hunt."
"You're making a lot of red," Natalie commented.
Tseyo decided not to respond.
She might have pressed him for more details, but Norm returned with his friends. "There's still more," he said as they set their bowls down. He and Natalie had a quick exchange, again in their own tongue, which resulted in Norm finding a large, metallic bowl in which he and his friends discarded the seed's excess before heading back downstairs.
In the meantime, Tseyo monitored his colors. The yellow pigment mixed with the seed's starch and turned more orange than yellow, while the red and purple had brightened. He fixed the red by adding some of the black into it, but was otherwise content with how his work had turned out.
About the time Norm and the others returned with their second batch of starch, Natalie asked, "How do you know when the paint's done?"
He smiled and said, "There's a very simple way to know." She raised her eyebrows, and then he dipped a finger in the purple and quickly smeared it on her cheek. Natalie recoiled with a short cry of surprise while others chuckled. He broadened his smile and said, "It looks ready."
She responded by lightly hitting his knee with the stick she used to prop herself up. "Thanks," she said dryly as she dampened a cloth.
"It looks good on you," he replied. "Your skin brings it out."
Natalie chuckled while she rubbed the paint off.
His smile faded as he contemplated his final step. He took a deep breath and took the dead atokirina' from the pouch on his belt. Tseyo felt the silence in the room become thick, and he was aware of everyone watching him intently.
Norm broke the tension by putting a hand on his forearm. "Are you sure you want to do this?" he asked with apparent knowledge of his intentions.
Tseyo nodded. "This way she can be a part of me tomorrow, and I can draw strength from her."
Norm nodded, and Tseyo crushed the seed into each bowl of paint. The first crunch caused him a great deal of pain – so much so that he felt his eyes well up – but he persevered, calming himself by humming lullabies from his childhood. He mixed his sister's spirit into the paints until the remains of the seed which carried it were no longer discernible.
He finished the work with an anguished sigh, which prompted both Natalie and Norm to pat his back. The others, who had watched intently from the table, stood and joined them, each giving him a pat or rub wherever their hands could find space on his arms or back.
"Thank you," he said to them. And then to his sister, "Thank you."