“No. Now I need everyone.”
The young agent leaned forward in his chair, baffled by the thermal scanner. A moment ago, there were two orange figures on the monitor. Now there was just one. In the blink of an eye, Peter Pendergen had vanished.
—
Battery Park was one of the few areas of Manhattan that had to be rebuilt twice. In August of 1931, a clash between police and pro-immigrant protesters erupted into a citywide riot known as the Deadsetter’s Brawl. It culminated with a massive blaze that killed 112 people and destroyed half the new buildings on Battery Place.
Today the street was a posh and pristine beauty, flanked by acres of lush greenery to the south and sleek glass office towers to the north. Commemoration had turned the business side into a tranquil void. Pigeons merrily strutted about the concrete, free to forage without the usual human bustle.
Zack found a parking spot mere yards from their destination, a twelve-story structure of sloped steel and mirrors. The entire ground floor was enclosed in a thick sheath of tempis.
Amanda swept a nervous scan of the area. “So where is he?”
“Inside,” Mia guessed. She motioned to the four-foot metal post that stood near the barrier. “There’s the buzzer.”
“Seems like a strange place to meet. I mean, why here?”
“I’m sure it’s all just part of the zigzag,” Zack speculated. “He’s dodging his own people as well as the Deps.”
Hannah tapped a tense beat into her thigh. She didn’t have the strength to tell her companions about her encounter at the parade. Now she reeled in the dark subtext of Ioni’s comments. She’d called today a minefield. What if this was the first bad step?
They chose to travel light for their rendezvous, limiting themselves to one knapsack each. Zack nestled the last of their cash in a front flap. The sisters combined their essentials into one bag, saving their strength for an ailing Theo. They propped him up like crutches and walked him to the building.
Mia hunched over the intercom and pressed the call button.
“Uh, hello? Peter?”
After five seconds of silence, a ten-foot square of tempis melted away to reveal a pair of swinging glass doors. They unlocked with a hollow click.
The Silvers moved dazedly through a brushed stone foyer, past the unmanned security desk. The directory listed fifty-four different companies in the building, everything from law firms to placement agencies for corporate augurs. Zack swallowed a daffy chuckle when he noticed a nonprofit advocacy group called the Justice League of America.
Suddenly the tempis sealed up behind them, blocking the doors like a snowdrift. Hannah fixed her round white eyes at the barrier.
“I don’t like this.”
“If Peter wanted to hurt us, he would have done it already,” Zack insisted. “He could’ve killed us all in our sleep at that old man’s house.”
Amanda eyed him cynically. “The Pelletiers don’t want us dead either. Doesn’t mean they have good intentions.”
Zack looked to David. “This is the part where you say something smart and assuring.”
The boy had little to offer at the moment. A bad bump of the arm had set his wounds on fire. Between the agony in his hand and the area’s screaming history, David could barely hold a thought. He cast a blank stare down the hallway.
“We came a very long way to meet this man. Might as well finish what we started.”
The hallway soon opened up to a gargantuan lobby of polished green marble. Four towering ghostboxes swirled with abstract holograms while a bubbling stone fountain filled the area with serene white noise. Above the four balcony levels, a giant lumic projection of clear blue sky turned the chamber into a synthetic courtyard.
Mia looked around with discomfort. This stony paradise reminded her too much of the Pelletier lobby in Terra Vista. What if Peter was merely another Sterling Quint in waiting? What if they’d traveled 2,500 miles just to come full circle?
“Hello at last.”
The Silvers threw their busy stares around the lobby, and soon discovered a brown-haired man sitting alone among the many sofa clusters. He propped his feet on a coffee table and shined them a guarded smile.
“You’ve been through stitch and strain, my friends, but you did it. You’re here. Now the hard part’s over and you get some well-deserved rest.”
He motioned them over. “Come. Sit.”
He was dressed in a simple blue button-down over jeans, with white running shoes that were faded at the soles. His feathered hair was peppered with hints of gray and his steel-blue eyes were marked with gentle crow’s-feet. Even while lounging, the man radiated a coarse virility. He was a Hollywood gumshoe in color, an Indiana Jones between sequels. Hannah figured he was the type of man she’d go wobbly for in ten to fifteen years, when she was finally done with moody creatives.