Always/Never

Chapter 1 / The Second Step of a Grand Master Plan That Goes Nowhere

Silence taunted me as I straightened in my office chair, tugging my earplugs free; the explosion was only a diversion, but it was three minutes late. That was a problem. My grand master plans weren't allowed to have problems.

I batted the silky purple strands of my wig away from my eyes and leaned into the sunflower-yellow light from the window. Cars breezed along the streets of Havens below at a lackadaisical pace. The sky streaked with the feathers of airplane contrails and bubble-like clouds.

There was no fire. No cluster of smoke from above the high-rises. Not even a vibration from underneath my shoes.

Three monitors in front of me cast a contra-balancing glare of black and white. With the squeeze of my fists, the pulse of my technopathy blossomed before me. It told me the system settings were up to date, the time zone was correct, and my explosives were nowhere to be found.

That wasn't like me.

My nails made crescents against my palms. Something went wrong.

On my system's overlay, a traffic camera from the street corner a few metres away fizzled into view. Pedestrians crossed at the blinking white light. Trucks waited behind the solid line.

I squinted at the intersection, switching to the camera on the opposite side of the road. A cross-section of shrubbery pushed out by the razed grass, below which my invention should have been.

What...

I prodded at the system. The network of computers and phones around me made a second heartbeat much more controlled than my own. Reaching for the camera feed within it, I bypassed the locks with a tug. A CODEC transmitted the information. I'd arrived an hour ago to camouflage the explosives against the road. And now they're gone. Not possible.

A knock at the door jolted me from the flow. The knob shook. "Dianne?" a muffled voice asked from the other side. "Is that you? I checked the time sheet, and I thought you weren't starting until tomorrow."

The door jumped open. A woman dressed in business casual entered, stopping short as I crossed one leg over the other to show off my suit and shot her my best grin.

A series of emotions flashed across her face. She stared at the key card beside me, which bore my picture, though Dianne Daemon was a fake name my sidekick, Tandem, had cooked up; his money, my hijacked printer. I would have relished in the sweet victory of seeing her process the fact that the new employee this place hired didn't exist, but a muscle in my jaw twitched instead. The explosion was supposed to draw the employees out of the office. They were supposed to leave in a synchronized line, the way terror and chaos combined to form subservience, never noticing the intern had clocked in a day early, and my control over their servers would reign on in the distraction until I retreated in the smoke and ash.

The woman blinked. The way surprise coloured her face red almost made my smile increase. Almost. Because, in an instant, she whirled around and ran.

I need to get back to my plan.

I leaped out of the office chair, leaving it to spin in frenzied circles. Vaulted over the computer chargers. The door bounced against the wall as I emerged into the dull, monochromatic fluorescence of the cubicle rows. A credit card company logo stained every inch of the space like the fingerprints of some grubby, corporate nightmare state. Keyboards clacked. Telephones droned in bored voices that matched the volatile off-grey of the walls.

The woman walked backward, a collision course that led her past the water cooler and its offensively thin-papered cups, veering right off the shared kitchen with its constant whirring labour of the coffee maker. Somebody pulled the fire alarm. The siren whooped in time with my breathing and the flashing eye-strain of the lights from above us.