Remember Jamie Baker (Jamie Baker #3)(34)

“Hey, Geek!” Johnny G called out.

When the guy didn’t respond, Johnny G went to tap him on the shoulder, but I stopped him. “Wait, let me.” Grinning, I focused on the computer in front of the unsuspecting nerd. “Watch.”

I’ve learned to control my power enough so that I can focus on single electronic devices at a time. I reached out with my senses and felt for the electricity coming from one of the glowing monitors. Once I had a grip on it, I sent the screen just enough power to blitz the image momentarily. My tiny power surges never actually hurt computer monitors, but you wouldn’t know it from the way Teddy always freaked out. Geek was no different.

When the second computer glitched, the man sitting in front of it froze. He waited a moment, so I blitzed it again and this time he reached up to smack the monitor. As soon as he relaxed, I made one of the other monitors blink out for a moment. “What the…?” he muttered, and started pounding the keys on his keyboard with a new purpose.

“I used to do this to my friend all the time. It drove him crazy. Geeks are so touchy about their equipment.” The ACEs with me all snickered as they watched their team member get more and more confused. “And for my final trick…”

I picked up my speed and made all the monitors blink in and out like a strand of Christmas lights. The poor guy manning the station freaked out. He started swearing like a sailor and jumped to his feet so fast his headphones caught him up and yanked him back down.

The ACEs all burst into wild laughter, drawing the attention of every worker in the room. As they all came to investigate, the guy I’d been harassing finally whirled around. He spouted another string of impressive curses until he found me standing in the middle of his peers, and his mouth popped shut.

“Hey Geek, get over here and meet Angel,” Johnny G said.

When Geek did as he was told, Shortstop finished the introductions. “Geek, Angel. Angel, meet Geek.”

“Do we need to explain that nickname for you?” Johnny G asked.

“Nope.” I laughed. “Not at all.” I smiled at the computer nerd. “Hey, Geek.”

His wide eyes narrowed nervously, and he glanced over his shoulder at his computer. “Do you, uh, always have that effect on the equipment?”

He looked terrified of me, yet also strangely willing to try and boot me from the room if necessary. “Only when I want to,” I assured him. “Or if I’m seriously pissed off. Why? You on to something important?”

I didn’t really care what he was doing. I’d just learned that the best way to put a nervous nerd at ease was to ask them what they were doing.

Instead of Geek’s face lighting up with excitement, he frowned in frustration. “I’m stumped. It doesn’t happen often, and I don’t like it. Visticorp held the patents to a number of very popular pharmaceuticals. They were worth an estimated 3.2 billion in the last quarter before the explosion. Afterward, it came out that they’d been cooking the books and were actually bankrupt.”

I smirked, but Geek didn’t notice. He was lost in his own brain. “It’s not possible. It doesn’t make sense. All evidence suggests Visticorp couldn’t have been in the red. The money was taken, and the records were made to look as if it didn’t exist. It’s not easy to make 3.2 billion dollars disappear, but that’s what happened. It’s gone. I can’t find it.”

Now I laughed. “You’re looking for Visticorp’s money?”

Geek nodded. “Find the money, find the man. Donovan had to have had a contingency plan for if things ever went south.”

The poor guy. He was looking for something he’d never find. “It’s a great idea, but you might want to look for a different approach. I don’t think you’re going to find that money.”

The smiles slid off of everyone’s faces, and they all turned to me with shocked or curious expressions.

“You know where it is,” Geek said.

I heard the accusation in his voice and saw the suspicion in Major Wilks’s eyes. “No.” Technically true. “I don’t know where it is, nor did I have anything to do with taking it.” Again, true. Technically.

“But you have an idea,” Major Wilks pressed. Apparently I was transparent.

I looked around the group and knew that none of them would let it go. After thinking over my options, I decided it was best to tell them because I personally hadn’t done anything they could arrest me for, and I needed their help to find Donovan. They wouldn’t do that if they spent their time looking in the wrong places.

“I have an idea,” I admitted. “I have several different identities. Each of those comes with a number of extremely padded bank accounts, and I’m sure Teddy’s do, too. I never asked him where they came from. He’s a genius with a computer, and, if what he said about himself is true, he was raised in the Visticorp labs and forced to work for them. He could have done it. In fact, I’m sure he did. It makes too much sense.”

Sparks of hope bled from Geek’s eyes as he watched his way of finding Donovan vanish. “Sorry to burst your bubble. But if it makes you feel better, I have a new lead for you.”

Geek perked back up, and so did everyone else. Major Wilks’s eyes glinted at this possibility of new information. I pulled the small pouch with Teddy’s microchips in it out of my pocket and waved it in front of Geek. “I assume you know a little about hacking and code breaking?”