Their Fractured Light (Starbound #3)(2)
It’s only when I lift my head that I realize I do have an audience. And that it isn’t my contact.
A young man’s seated on the floor, his back against a tree—a tree that isn’t really there, of course. His back is against a marble pillar, but the holographic skin of the room makes it look like he’s relaxing in a park. Except, of course, that he’s got a lapscreen and it’s plugged into the side of the tree. There’s a wireless power field here, so I know he’s not charging his screen. It’s a data port, which is odd enough, given that any info accessible in a public place like this would be on the hypernet. But that’s not what makes me stop, makes my heart seize. It’s that he’s wearing the green and gray of LaRoux Industries, and that there’s a lambda embroidered over his breast pocket. He works here—and he’s watching me.
My mouth goes dry, and I force myself not to jerk my gaze away. Instead I tip my head as if puzzled, trying my absolute best to seem intrigued, even coy.
A grin flashes across his features when I catch him watching me. He makes no attempt to pretend he wasn’t, just flicks his fingers to his brow and then away as though tipping an imaginary hat. He doesn’t look like a typical office worker, with longer hair of a shade hovering somewhere between sandy blond and brown and a lazy, almost insolent cast to his body as he leans against the pillar.
I take a breath to settle, hiding any trace of fear that he knows I don’t belong here. Instead I smile back, settling easily into the façade of shy and sweet; to my relief, his grin widens. Just flirting, then.
He winks, then presses a single button on his lapscreen. A holographic bird with brilliant red plumage swoops across my path and then freezes in midair. Abruptly, all the background sounds halt: birdsong and rustling leaves and even some of the laughter and conversation—all gone. Then, without warning, the entire holopark vanishes, leaving us in a vast white room.
The only thing in the room, besides the people, the projectors, and the pillars like the one the boy’s leaning on, is a vast metal ring twice my height at its center. It stands upright, made of some strange alloy that shines dully in the bright white light, and is connected to the floor at its base by a pedestal covered with dials and instruments. LaRoux’s particular holographic technologies are proprietary, but this looks like no projector I’ve ever seen—and while the other projectors are flickering and whirring and trying to overcome whatever glitch made them stop working, the metal ring is still and silent.
A murmur of confusion sweeps through the throngs of people, as groups abandon their conversations in favor of looking around, as though the room might hold some explanation. Its other features stand out now that there’s no masking hologram in place—the drink dispensers are bare and stark, the various projectors and speakers littering the low ceiling like misshapen stars.
Whatever’s going on, it wasn’t planned by the protesters. Everyone, employees and public alike, is milling around in confusion. If it were planned, the protesters would be using the glitch to launch their protest, but instead even the security guards at the edges of the room look unnerved. I let my eyes widen, using a group of interns as cover to move as quietly and purposelessly as I can toward the emergency stairwell. If I’m caught, the worst they’ll assume of me is that I was here to protest. But I’d rather not get in their books at all.
Before I can make it to the fire exit, a flicker of color grabs my eye and I turn in time to see the boy with the lapscreen pull a chip the size of his fingernail out of his screen and stow it in his pocket. Glancing up at the ceiling, he gets up and takes two slow, easy steps to the side, neatly placing himself in the security camera’s blind spot.
Then he’s shrugging out of his LaRoux Industries uniform until he’s just wearing an undershirt, tattooed arms bare for half an instant. He turns the garment inside out, revealing a garishly striped shirt matching the high-fashion trend of the moment—and just like that, he melts into the crowd. No longer an employee of LaRoux Industries.
And far, far too clever to be one of the protesters now milling around, confused and annoyed that they never got their chance to get on the news.
“Ladies and gentlemen, your attention please.” A voice, smooth as cream and amplified over the noise of the crowd, emerges from the speakers. “We’ve detected a security breach and traced its source to this room. Please remain calm, and cooperate with all security officers to the fullest extent, and we will have this resolved as soon as possible.”
The security guards, operating on some order given via the implants in their ears, have started funneling people off one by one, presumably to interrogate them individually. One of the guards is still standing by the door, blocking the exit to the stairwell—blocking my escape route. The concealer on my arm might fool a quick glance from someone at the front desk, but now I have no chance of passing myself off as a protester—a security breach will have them on high alert. The first thing those guards will do when they grab me is check for a genetag tattoo, certain that border planet insurgents are the most likely culprits. I close my eyes, calling up the floor plans I’ve been studying for a week and a half. They’ll have shut down access to the elevators on this floor, but there’s another fire exit and another set of stairs through one of the hallways leading off from here. I scan the crowds until I find that exit, and the guard ushering people in that direction.