Page 9 of Last Chance to Save the World (Chaotic Orbits #3)

9

R eady to save the world?” he asks, his voice husky.

“Don’t be dramatic; this is just a normal Monday.”

We push through the crowds to the lift. It deposits us in the warm, early morning light of a sunrise, the orange-red glow reflected off the skyscrapers towering over the city.

This lift brings us right to the gates of Central Gardens. At the corner, across the street, we pass a mental spa with bright lights, advertising its services. All the shops are just starting to open up, smells of rich food wafting out, enticing me.

“Not yet,” Rian says, grabbing my elbow and steering me toward the park.

“Just a little—”

“Focus.” His voice is stern enough that I’m distracted from the buttery, sweet smell of fresh pastries blended with the savory scents of spiced sausages. It’s decadent. If these people knew just how hard it is to hide the taste of goopy-yet-nutrient-dense recycler worm waste with hot sauce, they’d spend all their cash on honey rings and frog.a tat-tarja and pastizzi.

Central Gardens is a large park, a rare spot of green open to all. The meandering paths are carefully maintained and structured to encourage you to take your time, but we go at a fast clip. At least until we see the enormous floating screens.

“What are these?” I ask, peering up at the nearest one. It’s larger than a window, round, and illuminated with a video of some other city, streets crowded. From the background, I’d guess maybe Centauri-Earth.

“Communication Viewing Rings,” Rian says. “Not my department, but I helped approve the installation.”

I keep walking, heading to the next floating screen. A different image in this one—it shows a city in China. The next one is Rigel-Earth—I can tell just from the way the people are dressed. Through it I see a woman looking at her reflection in a shop window. It reminds me, weirdly, of the dusty shops we passed in Xlendi, the way I couldn’t have caught my reflection if I’d tried.

“The climate-cleaner project is big,” Rian reminds me. “The entire galaxy is watching. The CVRs are supposed to promote inclusivity and goodwill.” He sounds like he’s reciting information from a press release. For all I know, he is.

A boy from Rigel-Earth a little younger than us stops, peering through the video. He touches his arm and frowns, which makes me look at my own arms. I’m guessing the sun shield’s flare threads are making it hard for him to accurately see me; he can tell I’m there but can’t spot the details. There’s no sound from the view ring, just visual.

“This is a live feed?” I ask.

“As close to live as possible.” Rian points beyond the trees, where the top of Fetor Towers is visible. “It helps to be boosted by the comm network hub.”

“I bet,” I mumble. The boy from Rigel-Earth in the screen scowls at me, probably shocked to have a window into such a disadvantaged planet as mine. I pull up my sleeve and flip him off.

“Ada!” Rian protests. “Inclusivity and goodwill!”

The boy in the screen returns my rude gesture. For a moment, we both stare at each other, separated by lightyears and worlds away. Then a smile twitches at my lips, visible since I don’t have my hood up, and the boy on the other side of the galaxy snorts in silent laughter.

“Would you look at that,” I say, heading back down the path and past even more floating screens. “There’s one decent person on the entire planet of Rigel-Earth, and I happened to catch him in your little inclusivity project.”

“One?” Rian asks.

“Apparently.” I pull my hood up; it’s too easy to forget about sun protection in the cool, early morning, but radiation doesn’t care about temperature.

The park spills out into a stone expanse. There are more of the view rings all around Triumph Square, as well as more people. Food carts are already strategically positioned throughout the courtyard, and vendors mill about. There’s always a crowd at Triumph Square, but it’s clear that people expect this to be a big celebration, gathering hours before the scheduled launch.

Eight...nine . . . more than a dozen of the people here could be Rian’s. I catch eyes that follow us, stiff postures. I could be wrong.

He’s going to betray you.

I also spot at least ten uniformed officers. Big crowds, big security.

“Look.” Rian points to the front of Fetor Tech. The building holds the prime real estate at the side of the square opposite Central Gardens.

An enormous display illuminates holographic numbers that encompass the entire front of the building. As I watch, the numbers melt, counting down by the minute. It’s supposed to be a kickoff to the celebration of the launch of the climate-cleaner nanobots, but I can’t help but feel like this is a personal taunting, reminding Rian and me of how little time we have to do what needs to be done.

“It’s fine,” I mumble, grabbing his hand and dragging him toward Fetor Tech. A tight timeline is a complication but a calculated one.

While in the portal pathway between the gala on Rigel- Earth and the nanobot release here, today, Rian and I went over every schematic of Fetor Tech, combining it with his personal knowledge of the building. Fetor Tech has some of the best and latest technological security systems, but it’s still a huge building where lots of workers and guests need to come and go.

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 will not be allowed into the server room or any of the higher floors, and if you try to have her jump the gate with you, I will be alerted.”

“I know, ” 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. “I know, ” 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 that artificial is 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.

“I can’t wait to go up there,” a man says, sidling up to us. Rian nods at him, but before he can introduce us, the man holds out his hand and gives me his name: Haoyu Long. “I’ve been working here a decade, and I’ve never been up to the real office.”

“Oh, you should have just done what I did,” I say, looping my arm through Rian’s. “Sleep with someone with an invite.”

Haoyu laughs, then sobers, considering.

“Anyway,” Rian says awkwardly, “I’m going to introduce Ada around before I have to go into my office for a bit.”

I wave at Haoyu as Rian pulls me toward a nearby woman who says her name is Dante. I’m not sure if that’s her given or her family name, but then I get distracted by the way Rian introduces me: “My date, Ada.” Has a nice ring to it.

The woman’s eyes widen a little in surprise, but she embraces me warmly.

“We wondered if he’d bring someone,” she says, winking. “It’s rare enough to get to visit the boss’s office, but only a handful were given guest invites.”

Then she turns to Rian. “Bev is going to be so disappointed!”

“Bev?” I ask, because it’s painfully obvious that Rian doesn’t want to continue the conversation.

“Bev’s not exactly been subtle about—” Dante starts.

“I really need to talk to Ngabo,” Rian says, cutting her off. “I should introduce Ada to him. Then I have to make a quick stop in my office.”

“I wanna hear about Bev and all the people trying to date you!” I protest as Rian drags me off to meet Ngabo Gatwa, a communications director getting coffee on the other side of the room.

Soon after I shake hands with Ngabo, Rian tells me has to introduce me to someone named Melissa Nguyen, whose office is down the hall. We make our way through handshakes and small talk until we reach a corner. Rian strides confidently down the interior hallway, most of the doors shut and the lights off. Everyone’s finding excuses to not be doing their jobs. I’m glad I didn’t pull the fire alarm; this area is deserted enough.

“So, I’m your date?” I say coyly as we go farther and farther from the pleasantly smiling people who have no idea what we’re doing.

Rian rolls his eyes.

“Should I be worried about this Bev person?” I add.

“No.” Rian grits the word out through clenched teeth.

“I could fight her for your affection.”

“That is unnecessary.”

“Because you adore me and cannot even contemplate being with someone else?” I ask, beaming and putting a literal skip in my step.

“Because— Ugh.” Rian opens a door, motioning for me to hurry inside.

On the other side of the door is a plain stairwell.

“One flight up,” I say, my tone low but serious. Rian nods and shuts the door in my face.

I sprint to the steps.

Rian is going to use his clearance to go up one more level—he was given an office on the floor below Fetor’s. That’s our loophole. He’s spent all this time ensuring that we’re seen and friendly and peppering in reminders that he has to go into his office. Sometimes, the best way to hide is to announce to everyone exactly where you plan to be.

The security guard downstairs got me clearance to the floor where the reception is—all the menial workers who actually do the work, even if Fetor’s going to get all the credit. The employees get snacks and a chance to go up the golden elevators for all their hard labor, and I guess they think that’s enough.

Either way, I’ve got to get up there before everyone else.

The golden elevator? Out of the question. Right now, as I bound up the steps in this emergency stairwell, Rian is showing his badge to the security guards, and then he has an eye scan and another fingerprint press before he can go up to his own office. But he’s going to walk right past his office and instead let me in through the stairwell door.

I rush up the steps. There are cam drones here in the emergency stairwell, but when they buzz by, I pin myself to the wall, trusting that my altered sun shield is enough to register as a weird flare, not even a person. They don’t even pause when they pass me.

Tech can be easier to fool than people.

At least I hope so. I’m definitely gambling a lot on that theory.