Page 97 of Coldwire
“We’re in Threto a little earlier than expected,” I say. No need to go into unnecessary details—like us fleeing the authorities in Upsie—unprompted. “Ready to proceed to the Three Towns data center.”
Tapping echoes over the line. Kieren’s right: it’s definitely long nails.
“You mentioned yesterday that it was a floppy disk you retrieved, yes?”
“Correct.” Without calling a warning, I reach to check Kieren’s pockets, hearing a clatter when my knuckles knock against the disk. He jumps. I thought I saw him transferring it out of his bag when we were walking up the museum steps—it was a good move to keep it safe.
“I am confirming that you should proceed with searching the Threto facility if that’s where it says it originates. That being said, Mr. Chung did not keep an official office there, so I can’t lead you to a likely location for the disk reader.”
That’s a surprise. “I thought he kept an office across all the major cities.”
“No, he mostly worked out of Upsie. He makes appearances in upcountry Threto and Offron to check on his uploads, but his virtual activity at those locations is relatively sparse.”
“On paper, he’s the supervisor for the Ministry of National Defense’s data and all the servers that department keeps,” Kieren says. “Could he have a workstation in those rooms?”
“Those server rooms are indeed where his real work is kept, so perhaps.” Kam is chewing gum, too. I can hear it popping while she speaks. “I’ll get the directions drawn up. As for your entry into the data center, it’s Medaluo’s Tomb-Sweeping Day.”
Kieren and I exchange a glance. His expression mirrors mine, uncertain if this is supposed to be something we cheer or hiss at.
“Great?” I hedge.
Kieren’s eyes swivel. He’s clearly searching the web. “Ah. I see. Parade starts in an hour.”
“What does a parade have to do with tomb-sweeping?”
“Substitution celebration. No tombs upcountry, Ward.”
“Here’s the route,” Kam says.
A file drops into my display. It opens to a live, overhead view of the city, a red line showing where the parade will weave from west to east. The data center is on the east side of the water—the parade path will pass its front entrance.
“You’ll meet the delivery bot outside your current location. Get dressed, then hurry along. You can walk the parade route normally until you reach your destination.”
The line drops.
“Do you think she’s ever ended a phone call with a niceGoodbye?” I remark.
“Unlikely,” Kieren answers. “I’m not sure if this is a very good plan, either. Just because we can walk past the facility on a parade route doesn’t mean we can get in.”
“I’m hopeful that the delivery—”
The closet door swings open, interrupting my thought.
“Excuseme.”
A security bot has found us. These models were made to invoke authority, so I shouldn’t be startled to glance up and find it towering over us in height. Its oval body glides closer using the wheels at its feet. Since it can speak, this must be a similar model to Twelve, but the security bot has a large panel to display an emoticon.
The current one is a red frowning face.
“I must ask you to exit.”
I panic, immediately sprinting through a thousand various excuses for our presence in the museum. Before I say anything, Kieren’s hand snakes up my arm, gripping tightly and warning me to pause.
“Sorry, sorry, we’ll get out of this closet.” He applies emphasis to the word “closet.” I can’t tell if it was intentional, or if his Medan just sounds prominent in an attempt to hit the right tonal vowels. “No more delinquent behavior, promise.”
Then he puts his arm around me. The only reason I don’t shriek is because I’m too confused to react. I let Kieren lead us out and sharply take a left, away from the bot, before it has dismissed us. When I glance over my shoulder, convinced that couldn’t possibly have worked, the bot is calmly peering into the closet to make sure there’s no one else in there, then closing the door.
“You can’t act that guilty, Ward,” Kieren mutters beneath his breath, switching back to Atahuan. “It wasn’t asking us to exit the museum as foreign agents. It thought we were fooling around in there.”
