Page 25 of Last Chance to Save the World

It’s not as big as some buildings, though, which helps. Because the city of New Venice is built on top of a bridge, there are limits to the size of the skyscrapers. Fetor Tech is the tallest building in the entirety of Malta, but it’s less than fifty stories high, although topped with a pretty tall communications tower. Impressive, but I do like to think that Strom Fetor is personally affronted by the size limitations of his building.

Regardless, step one: get inside.

This is the easy part. Rian already has full clearance to be anywhere in the building. It takes a solid fifteen minutes for the guard in the lobby to deign to register me as Rian’s guest, and despite the way it makes my stomach surge, I have my ident scanned and a proper record created of my entry, and I do it with a smile as if this were all casual.

“She’s allowed into the viewing room on floor forty-two,” the guard says, bored.

“I have to stop by the main office and the server room first,” Rian says. He’s laying the path now so there’s no question when he accesses those rooms—with me—later.

“Then she has to wait on floor forty-two for you,” the guard says, his attention more focused.

“I know.”

Something about his tone makes the guard narrow his gaze at Rian. “Your scans are tracked,” he says. “She physically willnotbe allowed into the server room or any of the higher floors, and if you try to have her jump the gate with you, Iwillbe alerted.”

“Iknow,” Rian says.

I play a game on my cuff, pretending I’m bored senseless by this all.

Finally, the guard says, “Take the last elevator on the left.”

When we’re in the lift, Rian has to scan his fingerprint before he even pushes the button for the floor we need. Numbers zip by on the display as we rise, and the metal tube gives way to glass, showing the ever-increasing crowd at Triumph Square below.

“You really don’t interact with people well.”

“That guard had a chip on his shoulder!” Rian protests.

I shrug. “Iknow,” I say, an exact imitation of his petulant voice.

Rian rolls his eyes. “At least Fetor cares more about tech than people.”

“No guards on the forty-second floor?”

“A few. We can’t get slack.”

“I never do.” Besides, we’ve been over this before. Fetor’s love of technology—and his overbearing need to show off that love—means that we have to trick machines more than people now that we’ve cleared the first hurdle.

It definitely works in my favor that Fetor’s so pretentious that he loves artificial intelligence more than human. Then again, I suspect thatartificialis the only sort of intelligence that can put up with the asshole.

The elevator deposits us in a big room being set up by caterers with towers of champagne and platters of nibbles.

“No,” Rian says, gripping my elbow and steering me away.

“But!” My body drifts toward a table where workers are setting up a truly elaborate series of interlocking trays, each one loaded down with a different delectable goodie.

“No,”Rian says again, more emphatically.

Fine. I can wait. The caterers aren’t even done setting up yet. I can wait. And then I’m going to eat everything in sight, and I’ll punch Rian in the throat if he tries to stop me.

Rian waves at a few people he clearly recognizes from his time spent in this building, making small talk. We still have hours until launch, and none of the guests of honor are here, but I doubt much work is going to happen in this building today. It’s corporate party time. People are milling about, finding excuses to come out and watch the caterers set up rather than sit at their desks. Which is a pain in the ass, because it would be great if everyone could just leave. I wonder if I could get away with pulling a fire alarm.

Probably not.

Would be fun, though.

On the far side of the open area I can see golden elevator doors. This is not the same lift that Rian and I used to get to this floor, silver and glass. At least a dozen security guards stand in front of the velvet-rope barrier separating this elevator from the rest of the public.

I know what this is because Rian told me already. The private elevator that Strom Fetor and his inner circle use. If the elevator to get to this floor required clearing a single security guard and then Rian scanning his fingerprint before pushing the button, the golden elevator is going to be even worse.

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