We passed through the security checkpoint and hit the elevator, riding in silence to the fourth floor. When it dinged and we exited, I led them in silence to my office. I saw Ariadne through the window, her head down, working on a stack of file folders that was sitting on her desk. I was glad I didn’t have her job, I reflected as I passed.
When we got into my office, I sat in my chair and gestured for my mother and Karthik to take the seats across from me. They didn’t, though; my mother joined me on my side of the desk, hovering near the window, and Karthik remained standing next to the door, in a perfect position to ambush some poor bastard who stopped in to drop off a report. I didn’t say that, though, because he looked tense enough to actually do it.
There came a knock a minute later and when the door opened, Reed was there, J.J. in tow behind him. The nerd still wore his hipster glasses, though he’d grown something of a beard in the last few months. I say something of one because it was not the sort of thing a normal man would have looked at with pride. It was stringy and patchy, the kind you’d expect to see on a prepubescent teen. “Hey,” he said as he entered, flopping down into one of the chairs opposite me before I even had a chance to offer him a seat. “So, we’re going to try and track down Katheryn Hildegarde, killer of FBI agents?” He templed his fingers and stretched them, and I grimaced as he cracked his knuckles. I was fine with the sound of my own joints doing that but when other people did, it I got a little creeped out. “This should be fun. She’s got someone devilishly tricky working her network security; this little thing they’ve pulled to mask her is absolutely masterful stuff. It’s kind of new for me, too, I’ll admit. I’m a little envious—”
“J.J.,” I said, cutting him off. “Can you do it?”
“Maybe,” he said. “I mean, I’ve never tried it before.”
I held my breath and my annoyance. “What do you need?”
He shrugged. “Nothing. I’m hooked into our phone system,” he gestured at the little laptop sitting on my desk in front of him, “I’m watching the networks. I’m good to go. You may dial when ready.” I shook my head at him, then picked up my office phone and dialed the number out of the contacts list on the phone I still held.
It rang as I stared over the team sitting around my office. Karthik waited nervously behind the door, still looking like he was going to take a swipe at whoever was next to walk in. Reed fidgeted on my couch, his ponytail making a slight swishing noise against the leather surface. The ringing in my ear was louder than I remembered, and had an atonal, electronic buzzing noise to it.
There was a popping on the line, and I heard the sound of someone answering. “Hello?” came a female voice, strong yet tentative.
“Katheryn, this is Sienna Nealon. Do you know who I am?” I paused, hoping that the next sound I heard wasn’t a click and a dial tone.
“It’d be hard not to know who you are,” she said, and I could hear the caution in her voice. “How’d you get this number?”
“We picked up one of your colleagues’ phones at a safe house in Portland,” I said. “Do you know what my current job is?”
I heard a sigh at the other end of the line. “I’ve heard rumors about a few jobs you have. Primus of Omega? Operations Director for the U.S. government’s new meta Agency? Oh, and the last person on earth that Sovereign wants to see dead. So,” she went on, “in which official capacity are you calling me today?”
“In my official capacity as someone whose sole focus is beating the holy hell out of every member of Century. Preferably with their own limbs after I’ve ripped them from their bodies.” I let a little heat sizzle through the line. It wasn’t feigned.
She didn’t say anything for a long moment. “You’ve got my attention.”
“I’m calling you because I was under the impression you might be a person who’s of a similar mindset,” I said. “Someone who’d like to put Sovereign’s back against the wall and nail him tight to it.”
I heard her breathe on the other end of the line, and I could almost hear her contemplating my words. “I don’t know what you’ve heard, but if you think you’re going to beat Sovereign, I’m going to go ahead and say you’re either crazy, naïve, or you don’t know what you’re up against.”
I waited to see if she would say anything else. She didn’t, so I spoke. “But you’re not hanging up.” I paused for a second. “And you’ve gone and stuck a splinter in Century’s paw yourself.”