The Secret Countdown – Chapter 02

“We need access to the BMU.” Rafael set his credentials before the building’s night security officer.

Both of the gray-haired man’s brows rose even as he took a closer look at the gold-colored badge and detective info. “You do realize it’s storming like crazy outside, right?” the older man asked. His nametag cited his last name as Charles. “I don’t mind letting you up there, but under no circumstances will I be raising the top for the crane.” He tilted his head to the side. “What’s this about, anyway?”

Rather than answer his question, Rafael asked one of his own. “Have you checked to make sure it’s not open?”

The man’s attention snapped up to Rafael’s face. “It was closed when I came on shift. If someone had messed with it, it would have set off an alarm.”

Rafael kept silent, just staring at the man intently.

“Suit yourself,” Charles grumbled, turning to type into a computer. Four screens sat side by side on the desk, showing four camera views per screen and shifting to different cameras every few seconds. “What the fu–” He turned back toward Rafael, his face slack. “How did you know? There’s no sign the alarm ever went off at all.” The color drained from his face. “I need to get the arm back inside and close that thing!”

“No, don’t!” I’d been staying out of the way, half-hiding behind Rafael, but now a bolt of panic made me jump forward. There was no telling what would happen to Karki if the security guard retracted the arm with no one up there. Or what the man would do at seeing a yeti dangling from the end of it.

The guard flinched back at my reaction, then his eyes widened as he got his first real look at me. I had been getting that a lot lately, at least ever since I fully connected with the Energy of Life. It’s what the Secret Humankind called the ambient energy generated by living beings. The SH needed it to live, and it was also what gave them their powers, depending on what creature was pulled from humanity’s subconscious to be imprinted on them when they matured at the time of the Change. The fact that I could tap into it as a human was something totally unheard of, and hadn’t made me popular with the SH hierarchy, but it had also changed my thin, mousy brown hair and dark amber eyes. Now, my hair was mostly a golden blond with dark highlights, and it curled every which way. My eyes were still amber-colored, but of a much lighter hue. Nothing else had changed externally, so at least there was that. But being noticed was a new experience and one which, honestly, I could have done without.

“She’s right,” Rafael said. “Don’t do anything for the moment. Since the alarm didn’t go off, there’s a chance your system’s been infected by a virus. No telling what it’s been programmed to do. We’ll go up there and check it out and bring it in manually.”

The guard stood up. “I’ll take you up there.”

Rafael waved him back down. “Sorry, Charles, I need you here. If someone is messing with your system, it could mean they’ve also made it inside and are up to no good. I need you ready to call for backup if we need it.”

“Understood.” He handed Rafael back his credentials. “Wait a sec.” He punched in a combination on a keypad on one of the desk drawers to pop it open, then pulled out a couple of walkie-talkies and an unmarked key. “We can stay in contact with these.”

Rafael took the offered two-way radio and used the clip on the back to attach it to his belt. “Thanks.”

Charles then offered him the key. “If the system is compromised, the keycards might not work, so use this instead. The door can be opened both ways.”

“Good to know.” Rafael started to turn away.

“The maintenance elevator is in the back, past the golf simulator, and down the stairs,” Charles said, pointing in the direction we needed to go.

I took off with Rafael at my heels. The picture of an old-fashioned grandfather clock had popped into my head, each tick of the second hand pounding like a hammer. There was no telling how long Karki had been out there. He could be wounded and bleeding out, for all I knew.

“Julia, calm down.”

I glanced at Rafael, his brow bunched together as he stared worriedly at me. That’s when I realized I had been pacing inside the large maintenance elevator, glaring at the floor indicator every chance I got. “Sorry.”

Rafael removed his pistol from his shoulder holster and held it against his chest as he moved to stand at the front left corner, so he’d be out of sight when the doors opened. He signaled with his free hand for me to do the same on the other side. Not seeing a camera, I willed my double-edged sword and semi-opaque round shield to appear. Anghelescu had given me two Secret Humankind upper arm bracelets that stored the items out of sight until called. They had already helped save my life several times.

A glance at the floor display above the closed doors finally showed we were almost there.

“Any thoughts on why they might have done this?” Rafael asked. I was sure he was trying to distract me in an attempt to keep me from going batshit crazy.

“Karki sent Anghelescu a note saying he might have found something of interest,” I said. “Whatever it was, I think it got him in trouble.” Which was the last thing I ever wanted. “Worse, by leaving him out there, I’m pretty sure this is a warning but also a trap to try to figure out who else knows.”

“¡Coño! That’s not good. Not good at all,” he said as he wiped the back of his hand across his mouth.

The elevator dinged, announcing our arrival. The doors opened and nothing happened, so Rafael took a quick peek. “The corridor is clear.” He held his weapon at the ready. “I’ll take the lead. Stay behind me, just in case.”

I was the one with a shield. I was the one with healing powers. Nothing doing. I slipped out the doors before he could stop me.

“Dammit, Julia! Be sensible!”

I ignored him and moved forward, my shield arm up to protect my torso. I would probably be getting a loud earful later, but for now, Rafael let the matter drop and followed me.

The corridor was wide and nondescript, with dollies, carts, moving blankets, and furniture pads propped all along the left side. A cool, humid wind whispered around us, bringing with it the sounds of pounding rain. The door at the end of the hall had been propped open.

Was the bastard playing games? Or was he just making it easier for us to get at Karki now that we’d seen his warning? It made no sense! I grew even more confused when I reached the actual door. Our enemy had used Karki’s large prayer beads to keep it from fully closing.

I scrunched down to retrieve them, first peeking through the exposed crack. The room beyond was dark, lit up a little by the occasional streak of lightning still wreaking havoc outside. Whenever the wind changed in our direction, a low whistling ensued, and rain lashed inside.

“Don’t touch those,” Rafael whispered. “There could be prints.”

As wet as they were, I kind of doubted it, but I wasn’t the expert. Rafael was a glass-half-full kind of guy, while I was a half-empty kind of girl. Being raised in the foster system probably had a lot to do with that, or so I liked to tell myself.

I put my shoulder against the door to keep it still as he re-holstered his weapon, pulled an evidence bag out of his jacket pocket, and used a glove from the other to pick up the beads and seal them inside the bag. Then he put everything away and rearmed. There’d been no activity on the other side the entire time.

“All right, push the door open nice and slow.”

I did as he asked, even as he reached a hand inside, hunting for the light switch. If someone was inside waiting for us, it would affect them more than it would us.

Thunder filled our ears as the lights in the next room came on. We pushed on inside, each of us taking a different side of the doorway. The long room appeared to be empty of the living. My spidey sense remained quiet. We quickly searched behind the machinery and any other possible hidey-holes, just in case. There was no one there.

I willed my sword and shield away, not caring one way or another at the moment if I was being caught on a security camera. I was pretty sure our enemy had already taken steps to guarantee Karki wouldn’t show up on any. An odd suspicion coalesced inside me that whoever our enemy was, he or she was still trying to maintain the Paphal Saĝiga’s secrets. Allowing Karki to be found by anyone else or to be digitally recorded in his current form would work against that.

Our nemesis’s project to basically neuter a large portion of the human population might be all sorts of bonkers and cold as ice, but it would still work in the SH’s best interests to assure their continued survival. The trauma it would induce in millions of couples was but a minor side effect. Have I mentioned that, as a race, some of the SH thought themselves superior to humans? That one of their self-assigned duties was to guide humanity toward wisdom? Yeah. Admittedly, there were a few I considered worthy of being thought of as wise, but by and large, not so much.

 The wind howled, turning and picking up speed, spraying us with cold rain. The room’s roof sat fifteen to twenty feet higher than it should have been, supported by hydraulic columns that raised and lowered it. A bolted crane with a retractable arm took up most of the central area. The arm was completely extended at the moment, and thick metal wires dropped from the end to disappear down my side of the building. Rafael rushed up the ladder to the BMU’s control box.

I tried peering out the lip of the opening to the outside, but it was too high.

“I’m going to try to bring him up.” Rafael had poked his head out of the control box and yelled at me to be heard over the storm. I gave him a thumbs-up rather than trying to yell back.

We were so high up, and that metal arm extended so far out, I truly hoped whoever had installed this thing up here had had the foresight to add a lightning rod to the building just in case. As if to show me, a crackling sound and a flash of blinding light lit the air right outside. I yelped at the unexpected boom. All the hair on my head and arms stood up with a strange prickling sensation pouring through the rest of me as the air filled with static electricity. The smell of ozone, a pungent metallic odor, assaulted my nose. A small bolt shot from my finger to the wall as I turned to make sure Rafael was all right. Since we hadn’t been turned into buckets of Kentucky Fried Chicken, I could only assume that there was definitely a lightning rod somewhere.

The thick cables connected to the BMU started to crawl back into the drum. The wind shifted again, now driving the rain into the large room with a vengeance. Standing near the wall opening, I was drenched in seconds. The crane stopped rewinding until the wind changed once more. At some point, as the angle towards the top became sharper, Karki’s body would no longer rest against the side of the building, and the last thing we wanted was for him to swing and smack about.

After what felt like forever, Rafael stuck his head out of the control box to yell again. “He’s up! I’m going to bring him inside.”

I gave him another thumbs-up and strained to see past the wall into the chaotic darkness outside. The crane’s arm retracted inch by nerve-racking inch. As the end of the arm pulled inside, I finally spotted him. The sodden, limp yeti was hanging from chains attached to a long metal bar, which looked to be what the window-washer swing stages were typically attached to. His light blue and white aura was almost non-existent.

Rather than loosening, the grip around my heart now squeezed harder than ever. The Buddhist monk had been the first of the councilors to reach out to me, who wanted to see who I was and not just what I was. He’d offered to help, and this was his reward. The unfairness of it boiled inside me, so when it thundered again, I screamed all my anguish and frustration at the heavens along with it.

With the crane’s arm now fully retracted, the ceiling came down to seal in the BMU from the weather. Once the ceiling was closed, Rafael uncoiled some of the cables to bring Karki to the ground. Then a different kind of problem made itself known.

“Hold up a second!” I quickly waved my arms over my head to grab Rafael’s attention and ran toward the control box.

Rafael stuck his head out again. “Yeah?”

“Let me get one of those carts to put him on! He might be too heavy to roll onto one after he’s down.”

The detective threw a glance in Karki’s direction. “Great idea. Grab some of those furniture pads, too.”

Nodding, I set off for the corridor. I heard the walkie-talkie attached to Rafael’s belt go off. Probably Charles checking in on us. I found a stopper by the door and used that to wedge it wide open. Glancing over the offerings in the hallway, I grabbed the biggest cart they had and dumped a couple of pads on it before pushing it back at a run.

Centering the dolly in the puddle beneath Karki’s still unmoving form, I signaled Rafael to go ahead and lower him slowly. The moment I could touch his wet, furry feet, I angled him so he’d end up on his side. The pad greedily soaked up the water clinging to him, and I watched the wet stain spread, thankful it wasn’t blood.

Rafael shut down the BMU and came over, helping me unhook Karki from the holding bar, then we shifted and folded his large yeti form until he lay in a fetal position on the cart. Rafael had the presence of mind to check that the monk was breathing and had a pulse. I knew he had to be alive, or he would have reverted to his human form, but having Rafael verify it brought a welcome wave of relief.

“Let’s grab a few more of these pads on the way out and cover him up before we go back down.”

If worse came to worst, we had Karki’s beads. I’d seen him use one of them before to turn invisible. That was probably the real reason Karki’s attacker had left them behind: to give us a way to keep the secret of the SH if we weren’t smart enough to figure something else out on our own. It bothered me, though I couldn’t pin down exactly why.

We left the BMU room, and Rafael closed and manually locked the door.

Now that we were out of the weather and had gotten Karki out of immediate danger, my body started shivering in the building’s air-conditioned air.

“Chica, you’re soaked!” Rafael grabbed the nearest pad. “Try to dry off with this. I’ll take care of covering him up.”

I did as instructed, thrilled to feel a little less like a drowned rat.

As planned, he covered Karki with more furniture pads until the yeti couldn’t be seen, and so they soaked up as much water as possible so we wouldn’t leave a trail. Rafael then took off his jacket.

“Here,” he said as he handed it over. “It’s a bit damp, but should help.”

I gratefully put it on, the interior still warm with his body heat.

Rafael pushed the button to take us back down to the sublevel we came from. “I’ll go talk to Charles and return the key and the radio,” he said. “I gathered from our last exchange that the camera feeds were tampered with because he couldn’t see us up there, which I was thrilled to hear—silver lining and all that.”

See? A glass-half-full kind of guy. “I had a feeling that might be the case.”

He threw me a raised-brow stare. I just shrugged.

“Not sure what to make of that, but okay,” Rafael said, not pressing me. The elevator finally reached its destination, and we got off.

“Making our way through the underground Dallas pedestrian network will be our best bet to get him back to the RSC building unseen,” he said. “So wait for me, all right?’

I nodded in agreement. The fifty-year-old network would be perfect. Anghelescu had made sure I could get into it even when it was locked down after hours. A way for me to go from my new home to the Remington Safe and Clean offices without being seen. Having just survived a handful of assassination attempts, it’d been a prudent move. So had the acquisition of my expensive new apartment suite, even if my boss had gone a little overboard with it.

Rafael flashed me an encouraging smile before starting up the steps to the lobby.

I scrunched down the side of the wall once I was alone, and hid my face in my hands for a minute, the weight of all this madness catching up to me. Then I reached out and slipped my hand beneath the furniture pads to touch Karki to reassure him that he wasn’t alone either, and also to make sure he was still with us.

Every time an obstacle was removed, something worse seemed to rise to take its place. Billions of unborn lives were counting on us to stop the maniac’s lunatic project, but progress had been slow, and other crises kept getting in the way. Now that our nemesis knew we were onto them, Karki was but a taste of how bad things were likely to get.

Being a glass-half-empty kind of girl really sucked at times like this.