CHAPTER 37
IRIDIUM
You never know what you’ll find down in the dark, but the dark will always find you.
Undergoth proverb
Taser jumped down first, crinkling his nose under his mask as the smell of the Rat Network drifted out of the grate. “Remind me why we’re doing this again?”
“Dortmunder and Burke,” said Iridium, taking his proffered hand and jumping down. She stumbled a little until Taser caught her, his arm around her shoulders.
“Supervillains distinguished by their silly surnames?” he said.
“Architects. They designed a lot of the new downtown after the flood. They also designed the Academy complex.”
Taser stopped walking. “You can’t think that they’ll have plans for the Academy lying around.”
“If we’re going to hack the Ops network, we have to do it from inside the Academy,” she insisted, moving past him. “And by law, the firm that designed the complex is required to keep plans on-site.”
“Don’t know if you noticed this,” he said as he caught up to her, “but Corp isn’t bound by any law except how much cash and how many extrahumans it can toss at a problem.”
“I also know that Johann Dortmunder was indicted about ten years ago for conspiracy. He sold his copies of the Academy plans to the Everyman Society. They’d planned a bomb, or a raid, or something before Corp stepped in. Dortmunder got off with conspiracy, but …” She threw him a glance over her shoulder. “Would you get rid of an insurance policy like plans to the hallowed halls?”
“No, I surely wouldn’t.”
They walked in silence for a few minutes through the patchwork light. When they rounded a corner that led them farther into the darkness, Taser said, “What do you hope to accomplish by hacking Ops?”
“I don’t hope to accomplish anything,” said Iridium grimly. “I hope to show the Squadron that they’re just as vulnerable as the people they’re supposed to protect. That if they don’t have their little voices and Corp behind them, they’re fallible, and nothing for people to be afraid of. I want people to see that. I want—”
Taser held up his hand, and as she stopped, Iri thought once again that he all but radiated military. “You hear something?”
Iridium stilled herself and listened, over the drips and echoes of the tunnels, and the slow sliding trickle of the stagnant stream in the gap in the floor. Voices bounced off the curved walls and came back.
“What did you …”
“Say hello … Lynda Kidder …”