CHAPTER 28
IRIDIUM
Even locked away, the villains are not defeated. You can see it in their eyes, in the way they hold themselves, even drugged or wrapped in a straitjacket. Caged, yes. But not defeated.
Lynda Kidder, “Flight of the Blackbird,” New Chicago Tribune, July 2, 2112
The guard who ushered Iridium down the hallways, past the blank cell doors, each branded only with the designation of the rabid within, turned to her with an apologetic smile. “He’s been yelling and carrying on for the last hour, demanding to see you, Doctor. Sorry for waking you.”
“It’s not a problem,” Iridium murmured, feeling the cold snake of fear twist and coil in her gut. “I’m always here for my patients.” For Lester to risk drawing attention to their arrangement, something was very wrong.
“You’re a saint, Doctor,” said the guard, sliding his key through the pass slot outside the interview room. Iridium heard her father ranting from inside.
“Motherless sons of whores!” he shouted. “You let me out! We’ll see who’s rabid and who’s not!”
The door slid open, and Iridium pressed past the guard. “Mr. Bradford, that’s quite enough of that noise.”
Lester sobered immediately when he saw the expression on her face. “About time you got here, missy,” he snarled.
“Show the doctor a little respect,” said the guard, raising his nightstick in warning.
“Not to worry,” Iridium said through a fake smile, sitting at the lone table. “We’re fine here.”
“You got ten minutes.” The guard glared at Lester as he walked out the door.
As soon as she heard the lock click into place, Iridium watched the enormous clock ticking down the seconds. As soon as the requisite thirty had passed, she snarled, “What, Dad? What is so all-fired important?”
Lester exhaled and slumped backward in his chair. “You have any idea how tiring yelling obscenities for a solid hour is? I’m knackered.”
Iridium slapped the table with her palm. “Focus, Lester.”
His face flickered with a smile. “You sound like your mother when you call me Lester.”
“Dad,” Iridium said through gritted teeth. “What. Is. The. Problem?”
He leaned in, even though they were alone, and spoke so low that Iridium had to bend her ear almost against his lips. “We’ve got a message from Ivanoff.”
“Great,” said Iridium. “That still doesn’t explain why I had to rush down here to take in the wisdom of some Corp flunky.”
“Ex,” said Lester. “He was their commnet programmer until he got caught skimming from the accounts heroes use to fund their Runners and cushy little cages and Christo knows what else. They tossed him in here with the rabids rather than go through with one of those bothersome trials with evidence and the like. Nice bloke. Plays chess with me.”
Iridium narrowed her eyes. “Where are we going with this?”
Lester’s worried face re-formed into the sly grin she remembered from his WANTED holopapers, which at one time had covered New Chicago like flickering snow.
“Ivanoff let slip to me during one of our games that he programmed the communication systems that the heroes use from the ground up in the good old days.” He laced his fingers behind his head. “Everything that the skinsuits use to talk to each other, he built.”
Iridium felt her throat tighten. “What did he give you, Dad?”
“Everything.”
Iridium sighed in frustration. “Assuming that he isn’t jerking you around—and may I say that embezzling Corp scumbags aren’t famous for telling the truth—what could we do with some outdated passwords into superhero email?”
“Callie,” he said, shaking his head, “you’re not thinking, girl. Ivanoff programmed everything. Including that little voice inside your head when you strap on the costume and go out into the field.”
Iridium’s eyes widened. “Ops? You mean he programmed Ops?”
“Ops,” said Lester, grinning. “He knows every code key, every back door into the program.” He shrugged, the grin still on his face. “I figured it was my duty to pass the information along to my brilliant daughter.”
Iridium felt her heartbeat quicken, heating her up inside the cheap suit. She told herself to calm down. She didn’t have enough information to get too excited. Yet. “Dad, even with pass codes and the like, I can’t do anything with this. Ops is run from a stand-alone mainframe inside Corp headquarters.”
“Then your part of this is to find a way in, isn’t it?” He leaned forward in his chair, as much as the cuffs would allow. “This is it, Callie, and you know it. I’ve been cultivating Ivanoff for months. He thinks we’re friends, partners in crime. Thinks we’re going to siphon off some of Corp’s E and that’ll be the end.”
“If Ops goes down, every hero in this city will be defenseless,” she said, her mind racing. “They’ll have no way to call for backup, no access to GPS, if something goes wrong—”
“If something goes wrong, they should have paid more attention in their field training,” said Lester with a sniff. “In my day, we didn’t have some squawk box in our ear telling us when to duck and when to punch.” He arched a brow. “Don’t tell me you still hold feelings toward any of those people, Callie. They don’t deserve pity. They deserve nothing.”
“You think I don’t know that?” Iridium said softly. “I don’t miss anyone from the Academy, Dad. I hate them, just like you do.” Even Jet, damn it. Even her. “But if I do this—if I hack Ops and take the hero network down, they’re going to know it was me and you. They’ll hurt you, Dad.”
Lester folded his hands. “Callie, I’m in bloody prison for daring to speak my mind. There is nothing in the next world worse than being trapped in a cell, knowing that the people who put me there are out flying around pretending to protect the world.” He reached out, palm up, and Iridium put her hand in his. “We’re going to do this, Callie. You’re going to do it for me. Right?”
“Right,” Iridium said.
“No mercy.”
“No mercy,” she agreed. “I’ll get Ops down.”
“Good girl,” Lester said, sitting back. “Good girl, Callie.”
“We have to do it when something big is going down, though,” Iridium said. “Otherwise, they’ll buy a new mainframe, sweep the mess under the rug, and it will be situation normal.”
Lester tapped his finger against his lips. “This city is ripe for anarchy, girl. It won’t be that easy.”
Iridium thought of the Undergoths, of the ripples through the underworld, the swelling tide she felt under her feet in Wreck City. “I’m not responsible for what happens after,” she said.
“The natural order will happen,” Lester said. “No one will be cleaning up humanity’s messes. It’s time the people of the world learned to think for themselves.”
His words sent a shiver up her spine. Her voice soft, she said, “You sound like an Everyman.”
“Ironic,” he said, laughing. “They hate heroes as much as I do. Too bad we couldn’t work something out with them.”
She narrowed her eyes. “I’m not working with the Everyman Society, Dad. Ever.”
“We’ll see. I’ll be thinking of you, Callie,” Lester said as the buzzer sounded. The guard was already sliding open the door. Her father whispered, “Send me a message when you’ve done this.” He made like he was shaking her hand, then pulled her into an embrace, the first they’d shared since Iridium was a child.
She thought she did a fine job of hiding her shock.
“There is a postal box in Looptown, inside the Apex Mall,” Lester hissed. “The number is 2285. The digichip with the programming you need to hack Ops is in that box. Ivanoff smuggled it out in a letter to his wife.”
The door slid open, and Iridium pulled back. “No contact with prisoners,” said the guard reproachfully.
“I’m so sorry,” said Iridium. “It was a very intense session.” She smiled at the guard. “Trust me, it won’t be happening again.”