She nodded at me and we both pulled on our climbing shoes and strapped on our handholds before gripping their handles. “Go parallel to me,” she said and thrust her handhold against the concrete. Iris was eight feet up the side of the wall before I even scrambled on. The pads of my climbing shoes stuck like glue to the concrete and I maneuvered my way upward, getting used to the flicking motion of my wrists and roll of my ankles to deactivate the grips each time.
It was a lot harder than Iris made it look. All my muscles strained as I clung against the wall, heart thumping hard against my ribs. My eyes watered from the polluted air, especially sensitive now that I spent the majority of my time breathing clean, regulated air. I used my legs to push myself upward, driving the handholds against the concrete as I did so. Risking a glance upward, I saw that Iris was already a third of the way up the citadel, climbing like a damned spider. Focusing on building rhythm and momentum, I ascended. There was no room for panic or error.
By the time I reached the top, I was so pumped, I felt I could scale another ten stories. This close, we could see the webwork of pale blue lights that crisscrossed its way over the citadel’s rooftop.
“All right, boss,” Iris said. “Cut the lights.”
“The autotransfer switch is on maintenance bypass mode,” Victor interjected from the generator building. “We’re good.”
Iris and I waited, and I could hear my own breathing as we hugged the cold concrete. “Working on it,” Lingyi said. “Hold on.”
I blinked the sweat from my eyes. “Any day now, boss.”
Iris wasn’t even sweating and perched on the wall with such ease, she might have been lounging on a sofa.
“You’re a robot, you know that?” I said through gritted teeth.
The corners of her eyes crinkled.
Just then, a buzzing sound arced above our heads, and the city blocks went black around us. Distant honking of cars and mopeds from afar drifted to where we were. People shouted and cursed in panicked voices.
“Now,” Iris said, and we both heaved ourselves over the side of the building, clear now of the sensors.
The rooftop was empty. We crouched low to the ground, scanning our surroundings. My scalp and arms tingled, as if the webwork of sensors had left a lingering hum in the air around us.
“We’re good, boss,” Iris said.
“Great,” Lingyi replied.
Just then, the night sky fizzled above our heads and the blue sensors flickered back into place. The blocks surrounding us were once again lit with dim streetlights; the neon signs of Snake Alley flashed in the distance.
“That was twelve seconds,” Lingyi said into our earpieces. “The generator never kicked in. If we’re lucky, security won’t be bothered to check and will assume the power lag was a hiccup. Victor, I need you to hide and clear out if they come around sniffing.”
“Got it, boss,” Vic said.
Outages were not uncommon in Taipei, and we used that to our advantage.
Iris nodded to me and we stripped of our gear, pulling on our regular shoes and black gloves before running over to the only exit, a single steel door that jutted out from the middle of the empty rooftop. A blue touch pad glowed beside it. Victor had sent a small cambot flying over the building to scout it before our mission. But the winds had been strong, and although we were certain of the webwork sensors, the images of the door and touch pad had been blurry.
“It looks exactly the same as the ones at Jin Corp,” I confirmed. “I’ll try Daiyu’s access code.”
Whether Daiyu’s code would work in the off-site building was a crapshoot. I punched in her eight-digit code, heart pounding. For five long seconds, nothing. Then a loud whir emitted from the steel door and it thunked, swinging open inwardly.
“Yes,” I said and exchanged high fives with Iris. “We’re in, boss.”
“Good,” Lingyi replied. “You want the ninth floor.”
Inside, there was no touch pad, which indicated that the door was designed only to keep people out. I shut it behind us, hoping security hadn’t noticed that the rooftop door had been accessed. It was our way in, but also our only way back out. Iris led the way down the narrow stairway, lit by dim blue lights.
I followed her along the concrete steps, which descended at a steep angle. She slunk as silent as a panther, and every scrape of my foot sounded too loud in my own ears. The stairs terminated on the ninth floor; our only exit was the steel door that opened with a push bar. Iris pulled her motion-sensing goggles on, and their green rays sliced through the thick concrete walls. “Clear as far as I can see,” she said.
She pushed the bar without hesitation and stepped through, looking both ways, then beckoned with one hand. I was still high on adrenaline, hyperaware of my surroundings, feeling like I could smash through a door or jump between buildings if I had to. The hallway was long and disappeared on both sides in sharp turns due to the five-sided shape of the building. A double steel door stood before us, with the same blue touch pad for security. Iris and I exchanged glances.
I waited while Iris walked the circumference of the floor, scanning for movement beyond the thick data-center walls. Her goggles were able to detect even the slightest twitch—the rise and fall of the chest as a person breathed, when a throat worked as someone swallowed. After a few minutes, which seemed too long, she jogged back into sight and nodded to me. Holding my breath, I punched in Daiyu’s access code again. This time, the machine flashed in red: WELCOME JIN DAIYU.
Crap.
The double steel doors slid open, expelling a gust of cold air and the smell of machinery. We stepped inside and the doors closed behind us.
“We’re in,” Iris said to Lingyi. “But the touch pad recognized Daiyu’s security code and identified her.”
“Will security be notified she’s in the building?” I asked, feeling light-headed.
“Unlikely, because they expect to greet every person at the front entrance, so an alert would be unnecessary,” Lingyi said into our earpieces. “But it just takes one glance at the logs for whatever reason for this to be over. We need to move.” Lingyi sounded in control as always, but I could still detect the edge in her voice. “Once I have access to Jin’s security system, I can wipe your use of Daiyu’s personal code from their logs.”
“Right, boss,” I said, flexing my fingers. “I’m ready.”
“Are there machines?” Lingyi asked through the earpiece.
“Hundreds,” I replied.
Rows and rows of steel racks housed blinking servers. A low hum vibrated through the expansive concrete space. The data center was also five-sided with a ten-foot ceiling, dimly lit with blue lights at each corner where the five walls met. I clicked my Vox on to bright to use as a flashlight, walking down a random row of machines. “What am I looking for?” I asked.
“The security servers are housed on this floor,” Lingyi said. “Any one of them will do.”
I walked down a dark row, surrounded by blinking green and blue lights, with an occasional red or flash of yellow, and chose a server farther away from the entrance. “Got it.”
Iris had disappeared down another row of machines, prowling as she always did.
“Are the lights all blinking in one color?” Lingyi said in my earpiece.
“Yes. Blue.”