Stars Rise

XLIX. Hora Quarta

What Cristo needed Lien Cassus for was a break-in to the Constellation Company in the middle of what was quickly becoming the afternoon. "Let's go," Cristo said, and the two started up the street toward the tallest building downtown, above which four short buildings orbited.

"There's a complex of offices I need you to get me to on the penultimate floor of Eosphorus building," said Cristo while they walked. "Do we need to take the elevator or do you have authorization to link to that floor?"

Lien was cooperating, at least at this point, and she said, "The offices of Justin Marius and his campaign managers? Once we're past security an operator will link me up there."

"There won't be any red flags?" Cristo asked.

"No, I'm authorized to enter."

"And to bring a friend?"

"Yeah," said Lien. She had better not be a good liar. They were seconds from security at their pace.

"I want to point out," said Cristo, "that if you raise any kind of alarm, I'll be executed. Which means adding a murder rap to the charges really won't hurt me. You're going to want to warn me of any potential security triggers, or I will not hesitate to take you down with me."

The security check for visitors was in a booth on the side of the building, and Cristo was following Lien's cues to get past, but all Lien did was give the officer in the booth half a wave and keep walking. Cristo followed through the invisible arch again and was shocked a second time; he had Louis' gun. It seemed that was permitted. He followed Lien inside the glass door to the lobby.

Lien led Cristo to another arch that was almost invisible, except that she strode toward it as if to go through and two paces from it a hallway and a series of doors appeared on the other side. With a wave to the operator who created the link, Lien walked right on through without stopping and Cristo had no choice but to trust her and follow her before the link closed again. It would have been a good way for her to lose him if he didn't keep right on her heels to get through a link and have it close before he came through it. In the hallway with the doors, he had no idea whether he was in the right place, but he had to pretend to look as if he knew what he was doing.

"Marius isn't in his office today," said Cristo, almost as a question. It was a struggle for Cristo to not look around, up and down the hallway he had never been inside before, peering at the names on the doors and revealing that he had no idea for sure where he was, but he wanted to look like he had been here before. Still, directions were what his hostage was for. "Take me to his office."

"I can't get you inside undetected," Lien warned with what seemed like real concern. Either she was a good liar or Cristo's charms had won over his captive. Or the threat was working.

"I can get inside," said Cristo. Lien led the way down the corridor past sets of doors until they reached a kind of lounge at the corner of the building with glass windows and white couches. Around that corner were fewer doors, promising larger offices, only on the inner side of the building — the outside wall was still glass, looking out from the penultimate floor of one of the building's four orbiting towers. The offices along this corridor wouldn't have windows to the view outside, meaning they couldn't belong to anyone very important, so they picked up the pace toward the corner office at the end of the hall, where Cristo halted but Lien started to turn the corner.

"Wait," said Cristo, thinking, timing, calculating. "Whose office is this?" There was no label on the door, only a bronze knocker, knob and mail slot.

"That's Senator Gloriam's office. He ought to be here today," said Lien.

Cristo darted away from that office with a jolt in the pit of his stomach and started around the corner ahead of Lien, but at the next office he asked, "And this one?"