CHAPTER 139: BREAK-IN

The team where in a van, parked in an alley across the street. Inside, the only light came from the glow of Vanessa’s runic console. The atmosphere was filled with a strange energy. The kind of feeling that comes right before everything starts.

Outside, the Aethelred Bio-Mechanics tower rose into the night sky. It was a huge building of glass and steel, buzzing with strange power.

"Ward is up," Vanessa whispered, her fingers ghosting over her screen. "As far as any magical sensor is concerned, this van is just an empty piece of metal."

"Good," Seraph’s voice was a low rumble from the front seat. "Draven, you’re on watch. Anything that even looks suspicious, you report it. Do not engage."

Draven grunted in response, his eyes fixed on the building’s entrance. "Understood."

Seraph saw Jonah in the dim light. He sat on the floor, his eyes closed, breathing slow and steady. The tiny form of Cipher rested on his knee. "Jonah. Are you ready?"

He didn’t open his eyes. "Ready."

"The mission is simple," Seraph said, her voice a sharp command. "Get in there, find out where they moved the research, and get out fast. Do not be seen. This is a ghost hunt. Don’t become one."

Jonah took one last, deep breath. He let the sounds of the van fade away - the low hum of Vanessa’s console, the distant city traffic, even his own heartbeat. Everything went quiet. Everything went dark.

Then, with a gentle push of his will, he connected to Cipher.

Fzzt.

The world suddenly came into focus, but it wasn’t his world anymore. It felt different. Sharper. Stranger.

He saw his own still body from inches away. He saw his pants, the lines on his hands, all in clear detail. He felt a light breeze from the van’s air-conditioning on the wings folded on his back.

He was the ghost.

With a thought, he gave Cipher its first command. Deploy.

The tiny Progeny lifted itself, flying completely silent. It hovered for a second before phasing, its solid body turning into a shimmering, see-through image of itself. It then floated effortlessly through the closed van door.

Suddenly, Jonah’s view was outside. The night air was cool, and the city sounds were a mix of distant sirens and rumbling transports. The Aethelred tower stood tall over him. It was huge and scary. From this bug’s-eye view, it looked like a mountain.

Time to climb.

He guided Cipher across the street. The invisible creature rose on the wind like a ghost. He didn’t fly toward the door, but straight at the wall.

The contact was bizarre. No sound, no hit. One moment he was in the air, the next he was inside the concrete wall.

For a split second, his senses went wild. He could see steel rebar crossing the structure, bundles of fiber-optic cables pulsing with faint light, and thick metal pipes that ran through and around the foundation. It was like seeing the building’s skeleton.

Just as quickly as he entered, he was through. Whoosh.

He was inside.

The air felt pure and clean. He was in a long, empty corridor. The only sound was the low, electric buzz of the lights overhead.

He needed to find the ventilation system. The building’s blueprints, which Vanessa had projected into his mind, appeared as a faint, glowing map in his vision. He followed the map, floating up toward the ceiling.

He found the vent. He didn’t need to open it. He just passed right through it, entering the dark insides of the building.

The vents were like a maze. A flow of cool air guided him through tight turns and sudden drops. It was dark, but that didn’t matter. He didn’t need eyes. His link with Cipher gave him a perfect sense of the space around him, a kind of 3D awareness that was far better than sight.

His map glowed, showing him a golden line ahead. A magical ward.

He approached it cautiously. It looked like a glowing, golden net stretched across the air duct, pulsing with protective energy. A normal intruder would have set off every alarm on this floor. Jonah guided Cipher straight through the middle of it. The magical energy washed over him, harmless as a light breeze. The ghost felt nothing.

Deeper and deeper he went.

Then, a new sound. Squeak... rumble... squeak... rumble.

He froze, pulling Cipher into a tight corner where two ducts met. He could feel the vibrations through the metal walls. Below him, somewhere on the floor he was passing over, was a person.

He floated down, phasing through the bottom of the vent until his view was hanging from the ceiling of another long corridor. A tired-looking janitor was slowly pushing a heavy cleaning cart.

The janitor passed directly below him, whistling a tuneless, off-key song. Jonah waited until the squeak-rumble of the cart was gone down the hall, then continued.

He moved downward, floor by floor. He passed through empty offices filled with dark computer terminals. He phased through break rooms with vending machines. He flew through huge, open floors that were dark and silent.

The lower he went, the more serious the security became.

Thump. Thump. Thump.

He heard heavy footsteps. Two of them. He immediately pulled Cipher into the nearest wall, hiding inside the solid concrete. Two guards in dark gray armor, walked past. Their flashlights cut sharp, white lines through the darkness.

"Hear anything?" one of them murmured.

"Nah. Just the building settling," the other replied. "Hate the sub-basement shift. It’s creepy down here."

They continued on, their footsteps fading away.

The sub-basement. Jonah checked his mental map. That was it. That’s where the main servers were.

He came out from the wall and followed the guards’ path, keeping a safe distance. The air got colder.

He turned a corner and stopped.

There it was.

It wasn’t a normal room with a simple door. It was a massive, circular door of polished steel, at least a foot thick, sat flat against the wall. The edges were sealed with a complex series of glowing security runes that pulsed with a threatening energy. Two heavily armed guards stood at attention on each side.

This was the heart of the machine. The secure server room.

Cipher floated in the darkness. It had gotten past every wall, every magical ward, and every guard. He had made it.

Miles away in the silent van, Jonah focused his thoughts on the vault. He had found the target.

Now, he just had to figure out how to get inside.