The Heist of Hollow London, page 19
When Arlo crouched down and placed a hand on the locker’s handle and attempted to open it, the lock scanned his retinas and collected a scraping of cells from his thumb, and concluded he was the same man who’d set up the lock.
Arlo had a clear image in his mind of what should happen next: the door should swing open, revealing the Coyne inside. There was no reason to think it would not. Yet when it actually did swing open before his very eyes, he was overcome with glee and relief and astonishment it had worked. It was like completing a complicated puzzle in a video game, and he felt like doing a little dance. This was probably not how proper criminals felt in this situation. He needed to be calm and professional about this.
Arlo reached into the locker, grabbed the dull silver disc from inside, then bent down and shone a light into the interior to make sure there wasn’t anything he’d missed. Then he placed the Coyne in his blazer pocket before reaching into his case and removing something that looked exactly like it, except a small dent had been deliberately made in its edge so Arlo could tell them apart. This dummy Coyne had been printed by Loren when they’d arrived in London, and handed to Arlo last night sealed in an airtight bag, meaning when he placed it in his case earlier today, it bore no fingerprints but his—and his fingerprints were the same as Samson’s. He placed the dummy inside the locker, checked his pocket again to make sure he had the right Coyne, and finally closed the door.
The primary purpose of bringing the fake Coyne was not to put it in the locker. It was because Arlo’s case would be scanned on exit to ensure its mass was the same as when they’d entered, so he needed to bring something of equal size and weight. And if Arlo was going to take a Coyne out, it ought to go unnoticed provided he’d brought one in. As the other Coyne needed to be left behind, it made sense to put it in place of the one they were taking away.
Arlo checked once more he had the correct Coyne on his person, then sent the crew a message saying the objective was secured. Moments later his slate glitched, then the time and date reverted to the actual time and date. He checked just one more time that he had the right Coyne: before leaving the plant he would move it into his case, but until then he was keeping it easily accessible, where he could continue to check it was there every few seconds.
Upon opening the sapphire door and emerging into the corridor, Arlo could hear consternation from the support department regarding the massive glitch. The only person within sight was Drienne, who was standing farther down the corridor, alone, with her back to Arlo. She glanced over her shoulder and he gave her a nod, then she started walking away. Arlo summoned his squadron, stepped out of the premium store, and closed the door behind himself. He returned his attention to debranding the carpet. There was still lots to do. It was a long carpet.
27
DID I SEE WHAT?
Drienne had placed the Lost Weekend back in her case after its job was done—she would discard it somewhere on the workfloor, where there was plenty of junk scattered around so one more piece wouldn’t be conspicuous. She waited in the meeting room for as long as it took for Arlo to confirm he had the Coyne. They’d agreed to complete the debranding job after securing their objective, and Drienne saw the sense in that, but it was her intention to do it as quickly as possible, despite what Arlo had said about leaving no cause for complaint. She was on her way downstairs to hastily debrand every room left on the itinerary when she heard a voice from behind her say, “Did you see that just now?”
Drienne turned to see Henrik emerging from his office and striding down the corridor. She resisted the temptation to say Did I see what? or some variant thereof. Instead she asked, “Did your system glitch as well?”
“Right in the middle of—I was doing an interview,” said Henrik. “Am I meant to start again, or…?” He put both hands on his head and looked around in vexation.
Drienne had to give Kline credit: he’d arranged a very effective distraction. It might not even occur to Henrik this was an attack.
Then a support hurried over and said to Henrik, “I think it was an attack.”
“What?” said Henrik.
“What makes you say it was an attack?” said Drienne.
“Who’s this?” said the support, who seemingly hadn’t noticed Drienne walking through her office fifteen minutes ago.
Drienne regretted having spoken at all, let alone in such a defensive way. She toned down her manner, adopted a genial smile, and put out a hand. “Annie Clarke, I’m with RookDivest.”
The support looked wary. She was a made, and probably concerned she was about to be sold off.
“Annie’s here to debrand the facility,” said Henrik in a low voice. “She’s not here to sell anything or anyone, don’t worry.”
“Oh,” said the support. “I’m Rachel, hi.”
“If there’s been any attempt at sabotage,” Drienne said, “I should report it to my boss—that’s the sort of thing buyers will want to know.” She wanted Henrik to say Couldn’t it just be a systems failure? Just one of those things. She willed him to say it.
“You’re sure it’s an attack?” said Henrik urgently.
You motherfucker, thought Drienne.
“That’s my best guess,” said Rachel. “I was talking to the system and it came out with a rush of gibberish just before it went down. It was an overload and that’s weird because there’s no reason we should be receiving much of anything right now.”
Shit. Loren had been so sure that would go unremarked.
“This all makes sense,” said Henrik.
Fuck fuck fuck.
“Does it?” said Drienne, trying to appear only mildly curious.
“Before my interview,” said Henrik, glancing back at his office, “I was looking into the discourse on the workfloor and the underfloor. People down there know the company’s collapsed, they’re coming up with wild theories about how all the nat workers are going to be replaced by mades from defunct Oakseed sites, or that all the mades are going to be removed because the new owners won’t want them, because there’s a compliance issue or something.”
“But that’s not true?” said Drienne. Then she realized Annie would know whether or not it was true, and so she added, “It’s just not true.”
“Exactly,” Henrik agreed. “And there are people saying the workforce is going to be cut in half, and we’re getting rid of the ones with lower productivity records.”
“Huh,” said Rachel. “I mean, that is how we’d do it. If we were going to.”
“But we’re not going to.”
“Yeah, I know. But if we were.”
“There must be a link to this attack, mustn’t there? Someone who works in this building, someone here right now, is trying to get revenge.”
Drienne tried not to sound too enthusiastic when she agreed Henrik was probably correct about that.
* * *
Nadi was aware the crucial part of the operation had taken place, but she’d seen little evidence of it on the underfloor: just a stutter in some of the readouts. Her shift ended in about an hour, and she intended to complete it; if anything went awry, it might be useful for her to be around to help Arlo and Drienne get out. To this end, she would listen out for any messages and keep stirring these stinking vats and—
One of the other workers grasped Nadi’s upper arm, seeking her attention. The contact felt rough, unfriendly. Nadi’s first instinct was to turn, swipe the hand away, and prepare to put its owner in a choke hold, but she didn’t want to cause a scene down here too. She turned to find a stocky, shaven-headed, red-faced man glowering at her. There was a younger, thin-featured man behind him with his arms folded.
“Hey,” said the red-faced man. “That woman you were talking to earlier.”
“Woman?” said Nadi.
“The classy bint with the drones.”
“Oh, her,” said Nadi as if the woman had been so inconsequential she’d forgotten her already.
“Who was she?”
“I don’t know.”
“What did she say to you?”
“Something about the smell. She said do you get used to it. So I was telling her I was new down here and I didn’t know yet.”
“What was she doing?”
“She didn’t say.”
“Didn’t you ask?” This came from the man with the folded arms.
“No. Didn’t you?”
“Did she mess with anything?”
Nadi pointed at a couple of posters on the wall. “She changed those.”
The two men peered at the posters, apparently reading every word on them (and muttering the words under their breath) before reacting.
“Fuck, it’s true,” said the man who’d confronted Nadi.
“I told you,” said the other.
And they lost all interest in Nadi, and headed for the door.
* * *
Kline read Drienne’s gleeful message, the one that said Henrik had got the whole thing wrong, he’d put the attack down to unrest at the plant, no one suspected anything and management would have their hands full with this workforce issue. They were going to get away with it.
Kline sympathized with Henrik to an extent. The man’s understanding of his own staff was weak, but his interpretation was understandable: two unusual things had occurred close together, so naturally he’d connected them the only way he could see how. But Kline had worked out how the two things were connected, and he was taking the step of contacting Mia to tell her.
Mia was on her way to London in a helicopter, as per the plan—but what Kline had imagined when he’d heard “helicopter” was not what he saw when a feed of Mia appeared in one of Kline’s windows. She sat in a wood-paneled room at a small table, painting her fingernails.
“I told you only to open a line to me if it was urgent,” Mia said without looking up from her brushwork.
“Yes,” said Kline. “Well, the Coyne is secured and success is very near.”
“I know.” Mia didn’t seem very elated. Perhaps that was just her character, to disengage her emotions until the job was done.
Kline explained about the floor staff not knowing Oakseed had collapsed. It was plain Mia didn’t feel this qualified as urgent, but Kline persevered. “A lot of what people are saying about it isn’t true,” he said. “At first I thought the news about Oakseed had trickled in from somewhere and it got repeated and distorted. But that’s not it.”
“Isn’t it?”
“No. Someone’s feeding them this on purpose. I’ve been looking at how the information spread, and it’s not distortion of a single source. It’s a number of specific scenarios appearing in multiple places, and being disseminated pretty faithfully.”
“So where did they start?”
“I traced them to a series of anonymous pins. This information came from outside, it started in the last few hours, and it’s spread very quickly.”
“Right. Sorry, how does this affect the operation?”
It seemed very obvious to Kline, but he tried not to let his irritation show. “None of this is coincidental. If someone’s feeding misinformation to the workers just as the place is about to go up for sale…”
Mia looked up from her nails. Her eyes widened slightly. “They’re trying to drive down the price.”
“Exactly.”
“A restless workforce, productivity dropping—”
“It looks bad, and how it looks matters.”
“Someone must have been watching activity around the plant, noticed the debranding was scheduled for today, and thought the sale was going through faster than they expected. Is it going to affect the operation?”
Kline shrugged. “It’s tense in there, people don’t know what to believe, and it might turn ugly. And if anyone’s going to be a target—”
“It’s going to be the people carrying out the debranding.”
“Indeed. Just thought you might like to know.” Kline felt satisfied as the relevance of his investigation landed like one of those puzzles you have to tilt to make a ball settle in a hole.
“Thank you, Kline. Tell the others to get out of there, now. Without attracting attention.”
After Mia cut the call, Kline remained curious about where she got the helicopter. He started trying to find out.
28
LEAVE TO LEAVE
Drienne was doing a barely adequate job of debranding the loading bay in the underfloor when the delightful news came through that they had permission to get the hell out. Arlo queried this, saying they could cover the basics of debranding the remaining areas in about half an hour, but Drienne replied she was leaving regardless of whether Arlo came. Nadi said she would stay until Arlo was ready, but Arlo told her not to worry, he was leaving too, he just wanted everyone to remember he said they should finish the debranding first and if failing to do so proved to be their downfall, it was not his fault.
Drienne was shepherding her squadron back into its case, wondering if Mia would let her keep it after the job was done, when she heard the noise from the workfloor above. She checked the time: a shift changeover was scheduled for about ten minutes from now, so the workfloor ought to be emptying out before the final harvesting party of the day came back. But instead it sounded like people were gathering there. And shouting.
Time to go. Drienne closed the case and hurried from the room—
And was confronted by a securit. Male, pinched features, not the tallest or strongest Drienne had ever seen but tall and strong enough to do her some damage.
“What were you doing in there?” the securit demanded.
“Nothing,” said a startled Drienne. “Nothing I’m not meant to be—I’m here to debrand this facility.” She held out her backhand and her credentials flashed up on the securit’s visor.
“What?” said the securit. “They told us you were just prepping for a rebrand.”
“Right,” said Drienne. “No, we’re—”
“Then they’re selling it? It’s true?”
Drienne sighed; she didn’t have the energy for another artfully constructed untruth. “They’re selling everything, man. The company collapsed.”
“Yeah, but … How?”
“I don’t know the details, I’m just doing my job—in fact, I’ve done my job and now I need to leave, so—”
“They say they’re getting rid of us, is that true?”
“Who says?”
“People.”
“I think the place is getting sold with you in it.” She actually did feel sorry for him. She wanted to tell him he’d probably be fine, they’d still need securits in the plant after it was sold so it would make no sense to sell him separately. But then, their holders often failed to act in a way that made sense.
Drienne reminded herself that as far as he knew she wasn’t a made, but an important visitor from another company and she could talk to him differently from how she’d talked to securits back in Shanghai. She straightened up and said, “I need to meet my colleague and leave.” She started to walk past him.
“You must know something,” he insisted, grabbing her arm. Instinctively, Drienne wanted to do the whole how dare you, don’t you know who you’re talking to bit. She felt sure she could carry it off, though she worried these thoughts were her duplisychosis pushing through and going with them might be risky. But she prepared to deliver her rebuke regardless.
It turned out there wasn’t even time for that, because above them the noise was getting louder and it wasn’t just voices now, things were being thrown.
“Stay here,” the securit said to Drienne, who pretended she was going to do as she was told.
* * *
Arlo was still on the top floor, in an office belonging to one of the departed xecs, absorbing updates from Kline about developments on the workfloor. The workforce had started by noisily demanding answers from management. They had gathered around the stairwell toward the front of the building. Securits had blocked the way to the top floor, telling them Henrik was going to come down and address them, but when ten minutes passed and he didn’t materialize, they attempted to force entry. The fire shutters to the stairwell closed. The workforce headed for the stairwell at the back, only to find the fire shutters were down there too.
Henrik’s failure to meet the workers and offer them an explanation was the worst thing he could have done. By not denying any of the contradictory rumors about what was going on with Oakseed, he made them all seem true. Arlo was only now realizing how ingrained the company’s culture of information control was. Withholding knowledge was a form of power, and if you gave people knowledge, you relinquished that power. So information would be withheld as a matter of course, just in case there was power in it. And Henrik didn’t know how to handle a decision like this on his own, and he could no longer refer it up the chain. So he remained on the top floor, paralyzed.
The angry and frustrated workforce were now using whatever salvage was still in their carts to attack the interior of the plant, and the securits had backed off entirely—perhaps they even felt solidarity with the workers. If someone had indeed sowed misinformation with the aim of lowering the price, that person must be delighted with the outcome, assuming they didn’t mind paying for the repairs.
At least Arlo could now justify leaving the building. With the fire shutters down on the workfloor, the stairs now only allowed movement between the top floor and the underfloor. They were not designed to be used as a security measure, but to confine fires to one area of the building. There was still one other route to the main entrance: the management elevator, which Arlo had access permissions for. He hurried to the end of the corridor and pressed the call button, feeling guilty for leaving without alerting everyone on this floor that they should leave too. But the best thing for the plan was if he walked out the doors without being witnessed by anybody.
The display by the call button said the elevator was at the entrance, and it remained there. Arlo hit the call button again. Still nothing happened.
