There was a moment’s pause while Foaly waited for reception. Below the earth, picture-in-picture screens began popping up on the centaur’s plasma screen.
“Perfect. We have eyes and ears.”
“Let’s go then,” said Juliet impatiently. “Start the loop.”
Foaly wasted a minute delivering another lecture. “This is much more than a loop, young lady. I am about to completely wipe moving patterns from the surveillance footage. In other words, the pictures they see in the surveillance booth will be exactly as they should be, except you won’t be in them. Just be careful never to stand still or you’ll become visible. Keep something moving, even if it’s only your little finger.”
Juliet checked the digital clock on the computer face. “Four-thirty. We need to hurry.”
“Okay. The security center is one corridor over. We take the shortest route.”
Juliet projected the schematic into the air. “Down this corridor here, two rights, and there we are.”
Mulch strode past her to the wall.
“I said the shortest route, Mud Girl. Think laterally.”
The office was an executive suite, with a skyline view and floor-to-ceiling pine shelving. Mulch hauled back a section of the pine and knocked on the wall behind it.
“Plaster board,” he said. “No problem.”
Juliet closed the door behind them. “No debris, dwarf. Artemis said we weren’t to leave any trace.”
“Don’t worry. I’m not a messy eater.”
Mulch unhinged his jaw, expanding his oral cavity to basketball proportions. He opened his mouth to an incredible one hundred and seventy degrees, and took a whopping bite out of the wall. A ring of tombstone teeth soon reduced the Sheetrock to dust.
“A bi’ dry,” he commented. “Har’ to swallow.”
Three bites later, they were through. Mulch climbed into the next office without a crumb dropping from his lips. Juliet followed, pulling the pine shelving across to cover the hole.
The next office was not quite so salubrious, the dark cubby of a vice president. No city view, and plain metal shelving. Juliet rearranged the shelving to cover the newly excavated entrance. Mulch knelt at the door, his beard hair latching on to the wood.
“Some vibration outside. That’s probably the compressor. Nothing irregular, so no conversation. I’d say we were safe.”
“You could just ask me,” said Foaly, in his helmet earpiece. “I do have footage from every camera in the building. That’s over two thousand, in case you’re interested.”
“Thanks for the update. Well, are we clear?”
“Yes. Remarkably so. Nothing on this floor, except a guard on the lobby desk.”
Juliet took two gray canisters from her backpack. “Okay. This is where I earn my keep. You stay here. This shouldn’t take more than a minute.”
Juliet cracked open the door, creeping along the corridor on rubber-soled boots. Airplane-style lighting strips were inlaid in the carpet; otherwise the only lighting came from exit boxes over the fire escape doors.
The schematic on her wrist computer told her that she had twenty yards to go before reaching the security office. After that, she could only hope that the oxygen rack was unlocked. And why shouldn’t it be? Oxygen canisters were hardly high-risk objects. At least she would have ample warning if any personnel happened to be doing their rounds.
Juliet crept panther like down the corridor, her footfalls muffled by the carpet.
On reaching the final corner, she lay flat, inching her nose around the bend. She could see the floor’s security station. Just as Pex had revealed under the mesmer, the vault guard’s oxygen canisters were slotted in a rack in front of the desk.
There was only one guard on duty, and he was busy watching basketball on a portable television. Juliet inched forward on her stomach until she was directly below the rack. The guard had his back to her, concentrating on the game.
“What the hell?” exclaimed the security man, who was roughly the size of a refrigerator. He had noticed something in a security monitor.
“Move!” hissed Foaly in Juliet’s earpiece.
“What?”
“Move! You’re showing up on the monitors.”
Juliet wiggled her toe. She had forgotten to keep moving. Butler would never have forgotten that.
Over her head, the guard employed the age-old method of rapid repair, slapping the monitor’s plastic casing. The fuzzy figure disappeared.
“Interference,” he muttered. “Stupid satellite TV.”
Juliet felt a bead of sweat run along the bridge of her nose. The younger Butler reached up slowly and slipped two substitute oxygen canisters into the rack. Oxygen canisters was a bit of misnomer, because there was no oxygen in these canisters.
She checked her watch. It might already be too late.
Above the Spiro Needle