Authors: Alex Ziebart
“I don’t see any other options. I’ll get you your ring.”
“Excellent.” Nenet purred, “You have fifteen hours.”
“Fifteen?” Kristen's voice shrilled with outrage. “You said twenty-four. I agreed to twenty-four, not fifteen.”
Nenet crossed one leg over the other and folded her hands over one knee. “The way I see it, you've agreed to do whatever I ask. You don't have any other option. Fifteen hours, Kristen.”
Kristen gripped the table's edge and felt the urge to throw it. She squeezed instead and the particle board crumbled to splinters in her fingers. “Fine. Fifteen.”
“Good. Now run along and find my ring.”
After a momentary baleful stare, Kristen walked away from the table and out of the garage. She stopped just outside and turned back, looking at Emma's unconscious form, then at each of the gunmen. She cursed and kicked the dirt hard enough to dig a trench. She feigned fury, stomping away from the garage and vaulting over cars—and shoving them aside—to avoid navigating the labyrinth of metal a second time.
Back in the Sam’s Salvage lobby, she dropped the façade. She had no doubt Nenet would send someone to follow her, but in that room with the blinds drawn, she could be confident there were no eyes but her own. She forced her mind to work, silently repeating an earlier question:
What’s the play?
She needed something to give her an edge: maybe a tool, maybe information. Away from the spotlights, her sight adjusted to the darkness, the buzz of the Coke machine the only source of light. She moved through the lobby and slipped behind the long desk. She touched nothing and let her gaze roam. Knowing she didn’t have long before raising suspicions, she took rapid inventory of the few things that might prove useful.
Rolodex. Tablet. Keys.
Black book
.
She searched for security cameras, but didn’t find any. A power cord caught her attention. It ran from a wall outlet to the base of a vintage gas pump in the corner—the sort of gas pump antiquers would die to get their hands on. There was a hand pump attached to the base, and Kristen had wasted enough time watching
Pawn Stars
and
Antiques Roadshow
to recognize the model predated electrical pumps. Why the power cord, then?
Curiosity piqued, Kristen examined the pump. The front bore a branded plate held in place by four big rivets painted glossy black.
No.
There were only three rivets. The fourth was flat—the lens of a camera. Kristen slipped behind the pump, wrapped her hands around it, and heaved it off of the ground. Sidestepping once, she looked at the floor where it had been. There were no other cords, only the power cable. She put the pump back and set to puzzling it out.
The camera hadn’t been set high—no overhead view—but high enough on the pump where it would see the faces of everyone in the lobby as well as everyone who came through the front door. There was a power cable, but no audio or visual cables; it had to be Wi-Fi. She wished she could get at the camera itself to check branding, but there wasn’t time.
Kristen grabbed the tablet from the desk and tucked it into the back of her shirt, the elastic of her shorts holding it in place. She shoved the little black book in her top. The keys would be the least useful thing, she concluded, and the Rolodex could only mean involving other people—people who might end up killed for it, or worse, getting Emma killed. She took a pair of loose quarters off of the desk, too. Shoving them in the Coke machine, she punched the Diet Coke button.
Gotta have an alibi, right?
Sold out.
Oh, for fuck’s sake.
She punched buttons until one worked. A can tumbled into the dispenser with a clatter. Kristen grabbed it, checked the flavor, and scurried out the front door. She grumbled aloud while crossing the street to her car. “Jesus, you’d think a business could at least stock their soda machine. After all of this bullshit, you’d think karma would be kind enough to let me have a Diet Coke, but no.”
Kristen threw open her car door and hopped inside, slamming the door after her.
Think they bought it? Probably not. Kinda corny, Kris.
At first, she drove without destination. Thoughts buzzed in her head. Where would she be safe to talk? To follow up on her lead? To sit and think? She had to assume they could follow her car unseen—they’d clearly done it before. They might even have the car bugged. She considered going to the bank and sneaking in. They couldn’t reach her there, but it would raise suspicions for that very reason. She needed privacy, if only for a few minutes. Kristen could think of only one thing. Men feared it. Women respected it. Those two simple truths transcended cultures.
Kristen extracted a tampon from her purse and set it on the dashboard. She turned her car back toward civilization and the nearest gas station.
She pulled into the Gas'n'Go, parking her car in view of the clearly marked security camera. Purse slung over her shoulder and tampon clutched in hand, she hopped out and rushed through the station’s front doors, feigning distress. She paid no mind to anyone else inside and went straight for the front counter where a heavyset man sat on a stool behind thick bulletproof glass, his eyes glued to his phone. “Excuse me,” Kristen called through the glass, “can I use your bathroom?”
Without taking his eyes from the phone, the man jabbed a finger up at a handwritten sign taped to the glass that read:
Bathroom for paying customers only.
“You have to buy something first.”
“I’ll buy something, but I really need the bathroom first. I really, really need it.”
His head rose with a rejection dangling on his lips. Until then, he hadn’t truly looked at her. He seemed to soften at the sight and hesitated. Kristen flashed the tampon with a sheepish grimace. The man winced with silent apology and crammed the bathroom key through the small gap in the glass along with the brick—an actual red brick—chained to it. “It’s in the back.”
“Thanks!” Kristen snatched the brick keychain and rushed through a narrow aisle of chips and candy to the bathroom door. Inside, she locked the door behind her and shoved the tampon into the metal trash can. She pulled the tablet from the back of her shirt and the black book from her top. She set both on the sink—surprisingly clean—and wrapped the toilet seat—unsurprisingly unclean—in a layer of toilet paper before sitting down.
Settled in, Kristen picked up the tablet. She looked it over for any markings, another written on its dingy plastic case that would indicate it belonged to the business and not an individual. Though she found no writing, the filthy grease stains and fingerprints did suggest it spent time in the hands of mechanics. She hit the power button and stared at the lock screen for a long moment. Though hoping for another connect-the-dots password, the tablet presented her with a request for a four-digit PIN. She guessed it would give her three, maybe four guesses before locking her out completely. On the bright side, the name displayed on the screen was SAM’S SALVAGE—definitely company property. The battery indicator displayed a mere 5% power remaining, but that didn’t worry her. If she needed one, she could always buy a charger on the way out.
Four digits.
Kristen tried to eliminate possibilities before wasting any of her guesses. Given it was company property, she doubted the numbers were anything personal—no one’s lucky numbers, nothing an individual used for their bank account, probably not a year of birth. The PIN, she guessed, was either completely random or so simple no one working at the salvage yard could forget it. If it were random, someone had probably written it down. If it were something simple, a person didn’t necessarily need to work there to guess it. Kristen tried to recall if she’d seen any sticky notes or loose sheets of paper with a PIN when looking through their lobby. She was pretty sure she hadn’t.
Kristen laid the tablet on her lap and took the little black book in hand instead. She fanned through the pages, gauging its contents: notes written in multiple hands, item pricing, names and phone numbers, little reminders of things to do later. All in all, they were the things she might have written on sticky notes rather than in a journal.
She flipped back to the first page, where someone had written the phone number and address for Sam’s Salvage. Kristen entered the four numerical digits of Sam’s Salvage’s address into the tablet.
She was in.
Kristen blanched at the tablet’s home screen. She swiped repeatedly to page through the list of apps and disorganized documents. Rather than scrolling further—that 5% power remaining ticked down to 4%—she opened the search field and tapped in “camera.” One icon remained on the screen: an app labeled AcalaCam. Kristen stifled a whoop of celebration, settling on a jauntier-than-usual tap. AcalaCam presented her with yet another password request and she promptly deflated. She minimized the app, opened email, and her silent celebration began anew: an account was logged in, and a search for
AcalaCam
yielded an email with the password.
It turned out accessing peoples’ data was easy when people wrote down their passwords—and left their devices laying around.
Kristen pulled her phone from her pocket and dialed. Bernice answered on the third ring. “Hello?”
“Does Otherworlds use Acala for its security cameras?”
“Uh, yeah. Why?”
“I need a favor. A
huge
favor.”
“Nope.”
The line went dead. Kristen stared at the phone in horror. Nope? Just like that?
Her Temple phone rang in her pocket. She grabbed it and peered at the number, juggling devices. Though she didn’t recognize the caller, she answered anyway. “Hello?”
“Hey.” Bernice. “I bought some burners after you showed up half-dead. I’m guessing this is that kind of favor?”
“Yeah, and I’m going to talk fast because I don’t have a lot of time. The number you just used to call me can get texts, right?”
“Yeah.”
“I’m going to text you details for an AcalaCam account. There are—” Kristen checked the tablet. “—six cameras on the account, looks like. I need you to scrub through the last forty-eight hours of footage. Look for Emma. I need to know if Emma ever came through the front door of that place, and if she did, which building she’s in. The people I’m up against are changelings. Shapeshifters. You need to be absolutely sure the person you’re looking at is
my
Emma.”
Bernice cursed a storm on the other end. “Come on, really?”
“We’ve established I can do
things
, Bernice. This shouldn’t be beyond belief.”
“No, not the… shapeshifting thing. You want me to watch forty-eight hours of footage from six cameras? By when?”
Kristen did the math in her head. “Four o’clock tomorrow afternoon? Honestly, earlier than that would be way better. As early as possible.”
“I can’t do that myself even if we speed up the video as fast as it’ll go.”
Kristen closed her eyes. She leaned her head back. “Joel?”
“That would help.” A pause. “Tara, too.”
“I don't know. I love Joel, you know that. But he has a big mouth.”
“It's not so big. He already knows.”
“He knows?”
“Yeah. He knows you as well as I do. You two don't have girl talk, but come on. He knows.”
“And Tara?”
“I don't think she'll talk, and she's the kind of person you need if you're going to be asking tech stuff. Unless you go to Temple, and because you haven't, I'm guessing there's a reason.”
“Yeah. Okay. Bring them in. Don't talk to Temple.”
“Something going on you can't tell them about?”
“I might tell them. I might not. Haven't had much time to think. Just…do this. Please.”
“I will. I won't ask questions now, but after this is through, you're going to tell me how Em got roped in. Okay?”
“Okay. Thanks. Call my Temple number when you have something.”
“Will do. Be careful, though. Temple gave you a phone most people can't listen to. But they gave you that phone. They might be the ones listening. And if you're still using the same cell towers—and you might be—then let's get some call signs or some shit, okay?”
Kristen winced. “Yeah. Okay. We'll talk.”
The very moment the call ended, she sent over the account details. Bernice replied:
Do they use two-step authentication?
No.
Morons.
Kristen packed the phones, tablet, and black book on her person once more and set to making the bathroom appeared used. She peeled the layers of paper from the toilet seat and flushed them down. She washed her hands and made an unnecessary racket with the garbage can. Finally, she turned back to the mirror to straighten her wig.
She stared into the reflection. She’d forgotten to put it back on. For a moment, Kristen wondered why the sight hadn’t inspired the gripping panic it usually did. So often, she lost track of when she was or wasn’t supposed to wear it—nearly walking out with it at the wrong times, thinking she was meant to remove it when she had every reason to wear it. Each and every time, she felt that momentary panic. Not now, though. Why not?
She supposed maybe she just didn’t care anymore.
On her way back to the front counter, Kristen grabbed a Diet Coke from a cooler and a handful of granola bars. She returned the brick keychain through the narrow slot and laid her items out in a row for easy checkout. The cashier rang the items up one by one, but stopped just before the Diet Coke. He peered at Kristen through the glass. “Hey, are you…”
“Yeah.” She shrugged. “Honestly, if you could not say anything about this to people, that’d be great. I don’t want to be on the news for…you know.
That
. How much do I owe you?”
He stammered for a few seconds. Kristen didn’t wait for an answer and slipped cashed into the slot after he rang up the Diet Coke. She left, got back in her car, and drove for home, counting the hours until morning.
Chapter 13
As the Sunday morning sun rose over the horizon, Kristen sat in her car contemplating just how much time she’d spent in the driver’s seat over the past week. She used to find peace in driving. Now, she hated it. The feeling would pass, she was sure.