CHERUB: The Syndicate

1: Crowd

March 2011

Letty took a few deep breaths to steady herself. She didn't want to let nerves overcome her at this crucial phase. Once she was breathing normally again, she expertly tapped the keys on her netbook, setting it to copy the entire contents of the hard drive she had wired it up to.

Someone knocked on the door of the cubicle.

"Sorry, someone's in here," Letty replied in her best New York accent. Whoever it was went away and she breathed a sigh of relief. The netbook said there were eight minutes to go until the entire hard drive was going to be copied, and Letty thought that they were probably the most nerve-wracking eight minutes of her life. She could hear people going in and out of the bathroom, but because she couldn't see them, any of them could be an enemy. Most of them just seemed to be regular women working in the office, so she was left alone after that, staring at the flashing blue bar and wishing more than anything that it would hurry up. To pass the time she sent a quick email to her best friends Jemima and Beatrice, reminding them that she'd be back soon and was expecting a big welcome. She briefly considered sending it to George too, but he never checked his email account so she decided against it.

When it finished copying, she unplugged the hard drive and netbook and shoved them into her bag. After flushing, she stepped out and washed her hands, purely for appearances. She'd been too nervous to actually use the toilet.

"All good up there?" a voice whispered in her ear.

Letty pressed down on the tiny button behind her ear so she could respond. "It's all copied. Now I just have to replace the hard drive and get out of here."

"Good job," the calm voice of John Jones, her mission controller replied.

Letty stepped out of the toilets and tugged at the hem of her dress. It wasn't really warm enough for a dress, and the weather in Chicago could be variable at this time of year, but it was too late to change now. She strolled back into the office and was hit by one of the strangest sights she thought she'd ever see; a vista of downtown Chicago and the strong blueness of Lake Michigan from more than a thousand feet up, but the river which normally wound its way through downtown had been dyed a bright green colour in honour of St. Patrick's Day. She wished she could take a picture, but she didn't have a camera on her.

Nobody in the office looked at her as she made her way to a walled-off area. Children weren't exactly common in downtown offices, but she'd been to the office before and anyone trying to ask her if she was lost was usually met with a tongue-lashing from the boss.

The desktop computer was as she'd left it, so it was easy to slot the hard drive back into place. She produced a tiny screwdriver from her bag and screwed everything into place, before closing up the case and leaving the desktop exactly where she'd found it. With luck, nobody would ever know she'd been inside it. She did a last minute check to make sure nothing was out of place.

"Come in, Letty," John's voice said, and Letty paused in the office to answer.

"What's up?"

"We've got movement down here at street level. Our guys have entered the foyer and they're practically guaranteed to eyeball you if you go down now."

Letty felt panic rising, but she forced herself to stay calm. "Advice?"

"I'll manufacture a diversion in exactly four minutes. You come down in the lift and I'll time it so you can slip past," John said quickly.

"Roger," Letty replied, smiling inwardly at the way John called elevators 'lifts'. She headed for the nearest one, ensuring her netbook was safely stowed in her bag. Nobody used the elevators much during the day, so she got one to herself and pressed the button for the ground floor. Descending a thousand feet in a windowless box always made her stomach jolt, but the ride was usually very smooth. The only problem was, the thick walls of the lift cut off her communications, so she just had to hope that John had the diversion going.