> “‘I have my own methods of tracking,’ she said. ‘But I am most interested to hear about yours.’ And so they told her about the peculiar flowers they had found exploring up in the northern hills of the island that made the rocks nearby glow when you brought them close.”
The phone rang several times before he answered.
“Hello?” said a man’s voice.
“Hi, is this Phil Farnsworth?”
“Yes, yes, it is. What time is it?”
“3:40 a.m. I just need a minute.”
“Wh-what? Why are you calling me this early?”
“Sir, IT never sleeps. Especially when we have museum employees who are so careless with their ID badges that they lose them in Harvard Square.”
“I, uhh, I don’t know how that happened. I’m really sorry. But someone returned it, then?”
“Yes, someone did. Thankfully. But now we have to double-check that whoever had your badge didn’t improperly access any of the Museum’s facilities. And that’s going to take time. So until it’s done, you’ll have to work remotely.”
“What? But my research is in the-”
“Yes, in the laboratory, we know. Surely, though, there are some administrative tasks you can occupy yourself with until next Wednesday?”
“I, uhh, I think so. But how am I going to do that from home? I won’t be able to log in to the internal network here.”
“That’s why I’m calling. We’re getting you provisional access on your personal computer. Should be done by Monday afternoon. But first things first. In a few moments, you’re going to receive a text message with a four-digit pin. I’ll need you to read that pin to me so I can authenticate your account.”
I paused, and swallowed hard, waiting for the man on the other end of the line to attach himself to the hook I had thrown to him.
“OK. I’m ready.”
I hit “Submit” on the museum log-in screen I had open on my own laptop and crossed my fingers.
“While we wait for that pin to come through, I need you to know that as museum IT personnel, neither I or anyone else on our staff will ever ask for your password, either over the phone or via email. But what we’re generating now, it’s just a temporary pin that will only work for the next 60 seconds. That’s why I needed to call you.”
“Right, right.”
That nasty bit of psychology had been so effective at my old job that the entire engineering team, supposedly some of the best and brightest minds in the city, had been called into the conference room the next morning to explain why nearly everyone had given away the two-factor authentication pin to the random stranger on the phone the day before.
And the truth was I didn’t even need his password, as I brute-forced my way into his email earlier this evening and reset it. But he didn’t need to know that.
“OK, I got it,” said the lab coat. “It’s 2514.”
I input the pin and with a click, I was into this dope’s account, and with it, all the information about every specimen stored in the collection.
“Thank you. We’ll take it from here. If I were you, I’d probably not mention this or losing your badge to anyone, yeah? Wouldn’t want the hammer to come down on you for a silly mistake.”
“O-ok,” Phil replied. “I’ll just call in sick, I guess.”
“You do that,” I said. “Have a good night.”
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“I found it,” I said, several hours later, after yet another restless night. We had moved our normal morning meeting to the five-star hotel out at the waterfront where we had been deposited the previous afternoon. I didn’t think we were being followed, but we had spent too many mornings in the same spot, eating the same breakfast, so a change seemed in order.
“You did?” asked Emma, who looked glad to be back in her normal garb, and I didn’t have the heart to tell her that the respite would only be temporary.
“Well, I’m not 100% positive. But if I’m wrong, then the vial is not in the Museum at all, so we’re screwed anyway.”
“Fantastic, I guess. So where is it?”
“It’s in the lab, either on the fourth or fifth floor. Was moved there a few days ago, somehow. The Collection’s database and Farnsworth’s email were cryptic on who or how that was accomplished. All I found was a note in the inventory that said ‘exodus.’”
“Well, whatever. We can figure that out later. The important thing is that you…”
Emma suddenly collapsed onto the table in a heap, the sobs coming soon thereafter. I was so taken aback by what was happening that all I could do was hand her a napkin.
“Umm, what’s wrong?”
The girl slowly composed herself and wiped away her smudged mascara before gulping down the rest of her tea.
“Everything! This was supposed to be my mission. It was my dad’s life’s work for fuck’s sake, and all I’ve done so far is let you parade me around town in costume, almost give up my family’s oldest secrets, and then open a box that was already unlocked.”
Stolen story; please report.
“I thought you didn’t care. You told Dalia that-”
“It’s called holding your cards close to your vest, Jade. Of course I bloody care!”
“Oh. I see.”
In my urgency to earn a place in the Guild, I had neglected to realize how much this task meant to Emma. And in doing so, how I was on my way to alienating my only ally and almost friend.
“Look,” I said. “I’m sorry I kind of, well, entirely pushed you to the side. It’s just I was already in over my head and then you told me what would happen if we failed and I…”
“You don’t need to apologize,” she said. “I overreacted. You’ve actually been great. Sure, I thought you were a jerk at first, but I was wrong. We’d be lucky to have you in the Guild.”
“Thank you,” I said. “That means a lot. But we still have to finish the Raid.”
“Yes, we do,” said Emma. “And I think I know how we’re going to do it.”
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The woman with pink hair, a long black dress, a gorgeous diamond necklace, and pink heels exited the Mercedes sedan holding a flannel tote bag. Ahead of her, wedding guests were chatting around cocktail tables scattered outside the Museum entrance, the warm May weather providing the perfect backdrop to what was sure to be a magical evening for the happy couple getting ready inside.
But the pink-haired party crasher had other thoughts. She threaded her way through the crowd, drawing whispers and stares from the attendees. Was she one of the bride’s college friends? Or a business associate of some kind? With all the attention the woman was attracting, the guests could be forgiven for not noticing the second woman wearing a hooded black cloak that was carefully trailing one step behind. That second woman was me, clad in my invisibility cloak, and the first woman was Emma, who had decided to pick out her own outfit and disguise for this evening’s final infiltration.
We reached the front door of the Museum, and Emma opened it, letting it slowly close behind her so that I had enough berth to glide through. Inside, guests were making their way toward the inner courtyard, which had been transformed into a magnificent display of floral opulence. But Emma ignored all of it, walking directly to the bathroom across from the elevator, and I followed. It was thankfully empty, although the flower infestation had spread into here as well, with decadent arrangements displayed between the sinks.
After the door closed behind us, I tapped Emma on the shoulder three times to let her know I was still there, and she nodded slightly.
“I’ll make two loops around the courtyard before heading up to the fourth floor and then return down here.”
“OK,” I said with a whisper. “Good luck. I’ll be in the back stall. You know the code word?”
“We don’t need a code word,” she said, frowning. “I’ll just ask if you’re in there.”
“Fine,” I said. “Go.”
She left, and I entered the stall and locked it behind me, before removing the hood of the cloak and undoing the gold clasp. If anyone else had been in the bathroom, they would have seen the bottom of my cloak appear out of nowhere, and I quickly pulled it up and tucked it into my waistband.
I waited in silence, trying to calm my pounding heart. A few minutes in, a chattering group of women entered and one of them tried my stall.
“Sorry!” I said. “Taken.”
The interloper stalked off, but the flow of women in and out continued for another 20 minutes. What was taking Emma so long? My thoughts slowly drifted to the last time I had found myself in a strange bathroom: the night of the Met Gala. Inside that bathroom had been two letters that had ended my friendship with Lisa and Stacy. And Dalia had been there too, as if she had known all along what Beatrice and I were going to do. There was still so much I didn’t understand about what had happened with Frankie, Doug, and Gilbert. Hopefully, once this was all over, and I had ascended to the Third Breuckelen Seat, I would get some answers.
The chatter finally subsided, which probably meant that the ceremony had started, and at last, I heard the door open again, followed by the familiar clacking of heels.
“Jade?” Emma called out.
“Yes, still here.”
“Good. I’m all set. Cloak on. Let’s go.”
I pulled the hood back over my head, re-affixed the top of the cloak into the gold clasp, and stepped out of the stall.
No one was there.
“Emma?”
“Yes, here.
“OK. You might want to change out of those heels then. They’re pretty loud.”
“Oh, good call.”
The flannel tote bag suddenly appeared floating in mid-air, out of which a pair of sneakers materialized, which then disappeared as well, leaving only the garish pink footwear abandoned on the floor.
“You going to take those?” I said.
“No,” Emma said. “They’re horrid.” The heels skidded across the bathroom tile until they finally stopped underneath the sinks. “Let’s go.”
It was easier said than done. Now that we were both invisible, the only way for us to stay together was for Emma to quietly snap her fingers. It worked well enough that we exited the bathroom, traversed the courtyard, where the ceremony was in full swing, and down a long hallway, until we came to the end, where another bathroom awaited.
The door opened inward of its own accord before closing a few seconds later.
“Empty,” said Emma.
Above us hung a security camera, and I darted under it, lest the cloak somehow betray me. I felt Emma’s cloak rustle beside me and then the bag appeared again, followed by a piece of black material and a long selfie stick that had been hidden inside.
“The case give you any trouble?” I said, as the purloined Infiniblack attached itself to one end of the selfie stick.
“No,” said Emma. “No alarms or anything. The alkahest ate through the glass like a charm. Pulled out the Infiniblack and then got the hell out of there.”
Emma pushed the black film against the camera and removed the selfie stick, the material completely obscuring its view.
“And now we wait,” she said, staring up at the camera. “That thing makes me so mad.”
“What, the camera?”
“No, the Infiniblack. There’s an alchemic paint called aconitium that does something similar. Made only in a small village in Romania. But now the normies have their own version. It’s only a matter of time before they figure out technological substitutes for the rest. Can you imagine what would happen then?”
“Umm, I had never really thought about it, to be honest.” I said, wondering why Emma had launched into a philosophical tirade in the middle of the Raid.
“Well, you should, Jade, you should. Because change is coming, whether Dalia wants it or not.”
“I’ll keep that in mind, I guess. But getting back to the task at hand, remind me again why we’re even bothering with this exercise? We’re invisible, for goodness’ sake!”
“Because,” whispered Emma, “we’ll need to de-robe once we get to the lab. And this way, we’ll know the guard won’t be troubling us.”
“OK,” I said. “How are you going to do it? The spray or the lipstick?”
“I saw him at the desk. Not a bad-looking bloke. On a normal night, I’d try to kiss him, but we need to be absolutely certain. So the spray will have to do.”
“Sounds like a plan.”
We waited for the guard to appear, all the while the clamor of the ceremony floating our way. It sounded like a fun wedding from what we could make out, and I wondered how much fun I would have had at Lisa’s wedding had the whole memory erasure thing not happened. But I stuffed that pathos down into the recesses of my mind as the security guard finally appeared at the end of the hallway.
His walk was slow and deliberate and, unfortunately for him, he stared at the obscured camera for way too long. Because by the time he turned around to see what that weird spritzing noise was, it was already too late.
Emma tried to brace his fall, but he was heavier than he looked and her hands were full, so instead of a graceful landing, his head hit the floor with a thud.
“Shit,” said Emma. “Do you think he’s OK?”
My pulse quickened as I examined the unconscious guard. He was still breathing and there was no blood anywhere, thankfully, but anything more than that, I didn’t know.
“I hope so,” I said. “Let’s get him out of sight.”
We clumsily dragged the man, whose name tag said Dennis, into the small bathroom and let the door swing shut slowly.
“Now what?” I asked to the empty hallway.
“Now,” said Emma’s disembodied voice, “the fun begins.”