Chapter 10

"Absolutely not."

We get about a block and a half before we have our next disagreement. Now we're pulled over in a pharmacy parking lot while Jasper puts forth his most absurd idea yet.

"Morgan, think about it."

I'm learning that when Jasper gets really annoyed, he yanks the hat off and pulls at it between his hands. Maybe that's why I can't stop picking fights with him. He looks so much better without the green monstrosity on his head. I have to stop myself from smoothing his hair down again because it will only upset him more.

"I have thought about it." I pet my dashboard instead. "This is my baby. There's no way you can drive it."

He lets out a heavy sigh. "Right. Because there will be nothing at all suspicious about you driving up to Wolfe Tech with me in the passenger seat. At least if I'm driving, we have a shot at getting past the gate. Come on, Morgan. You're a smart guy. If we're going to do this, we have to give it the best shot we can."

I feel weirdly proud that he calls me smart, then annoyed with myself at my momentary preening.

The thing is, I wasn't going to drive up to the front door. There has to be a back way in, like I took Jasper to the back at Ziro Labs. So maybe I'm arguing because he's poking holes in my thinking. Acting on the fly isn't my specialty. I'm a scientist, after all. But if there's one thing I've learned over the last few days, it's that time is not on my side. If I can die via deep-fried pickle, everything is on the table. Acting like I have days to strategize an assault on Wolfe Tech is na?ve. If past performance is an indicator of future behaviour, even if I locked myself in a padded room, it would probably turn out I have an allergy to the insulation material and asphyxiate in minutes. So we're going in.

I glance at Jasper. He's got his mouth pressed shut tight and his nostrils are flared. I really love the flash of anger in his eyes.

Also, he's right.

"Fine." I pop my seat belt.

The Wolfe Tech complex—and it's definitely a complex—is on the far side of town. It's a sprawling gated compound, and Jasper fumbles to find the button for the window before he throws a cheery "Hey, Bobby, how's your wife doing?" to the man in the guardhouse, like we're popping by to visit Grandma at the retirement village.

Speaking of the man in the gatehouse, he stares at Jasper with a flat gaze like a rattlesnake. He's older. White with whiter hair. There's tinny country music coming from a battered wireless speaker in his booth, and he's got what looks like half a ham sandwich in one hand. That's all I notice before he turns the same glare on me and it gets assessing.

"No visitors allowed," Bobby says.

"He's a contractor," Jasper says quickly.

Bobby pulls out a clipboard, flipping through the crumpled pages attached to it. He smacks his lips a few times before he says, "There's no one on the list."

Despite my insistence that coming here was our only option, my pulse is pounding in my throat.

Jasper gives an embarrassed laugh, rubbing his hand over the back of his neck. "It's kind of an emergency."

Bobby's still frowning at his clipboard. "There's nothing about an emergency on the list."

"Please, man. You'd be doing me such a favour. He's an electrician. I blew a fuse when I was here earlier. Nothing major. I was making coffee and the kettle sort of exploded. All the lights are out in the kitchen. If he can fix it fast, no one needs to know, right?" The longer he talks, his voice drops. He starts to sound like the kind of guy who ends every sentence with "bro" and doesn't know when he's the butt of the joke.

I sink back in my seat. The secondhand embarrassment is excruciating. Jasper keeps wheedling, and Bobby keeps holding up the clipboard like it's a stone tablet from Sinai. Finally, Jasper shifts, pulls out his wallet, and hands what looks like a fifty-dollar bill through the window.

"For your wife," he says. "Take her out to dinner."

Fifty bucks doesn't buy much of a fancy dinner, but maybe Bobby and his wife are nacho people like Jasper. Then again, the greedy flash in Bobby's eye as he stuffs the money in his pocket says maybe he doesn't have a wife at all. Or else he does, but she's not getting dinner out of this.

"I could get in a lot of trouble," he says, but he also punches a button that swings the gates in front of us open.

"You're the best," Jasper says, no doubt giving Bobby one of his patented lopsided golden retriever grins. Bobby doesn't deserve it.

"He's charming," I say as we drive through the gate.

The corner of Jasper's mouth quirks up. "Definitely not the personality hire. He's like a guard dog in human form."

He pulls us around to a parking spot near the front door.

"This is a bad idea," Jasper says. He still has his hands on the steering wheel like he might turn us around and head out the way we came at any second.

"We've made it this far. If we go back now, Bob will know you lied to him."

He nods grimly. "Now what?"

I study the building. While the outside is bright, the interior is very dark. Makes sense for a supposed office building after hours, but it also makes it hard to get an idea of what we're walking into.

"Cameras?" I ask.

Jasper's got his hat back on, but he itches his hair nervously through the wool. "Everywhere."

"Security?"

"Just at the front desk, but he's got a response team on call that could be here in less than five minutes if he thinks something's going down."

"Then we'll have to sell it."

He gives me an anxious once-over. "I don't think anyone's buying you as an electrician."

I could tell him he should have thought of that before he told Bobby why we were here, but it's too late for that. We have to make it convincing, and my collared shirt and slim fit sweater aren't going to do it. If either of us looks like they work in skilled trades, it's Jasper.

"Give me your flannel," I say.

His eyebrows disappear into the brim of his toque. "What?"

I hold an impatient hand out. "Give me your shirt, Jasper." I grimace at what comes next. "And your hat."

He watches me with confusion but does as he's told. As I pull my sweater over my head, he clears his throat, but he's not looking at me as I undo the buttons of my shirt.

"What am I supposed to wear?" he asks. Beneath his flannel he's wearing a faded T-shirt that stretches quite attractively over his chest. The peaks of his nipples are visible through the material in the cooling air in the vehicle.

"Take my jacket," I say as I slide out of my shirt. Goosebumps prick up on my skin, and I slip on Jasper's shirt. It's still warm from his body. My fingers shake as I do up the button. Jasper has to lean over the console to reach toward the back seat and grab my coat, bringing him much closer to me. I inhale and my nose is filled with his sawdust scent. Or is it me? I'm in his shirt. Does that mean I'll smell like him now?

My hair itches nearly immediately after I pull the hat on, and the sleeves of my jacket are almost comically short on Jasper's long arms, but if he stuffs his hands in his pockets, it's not so bad.

"Ready?" he asks.

I lock my gaze with his. We can do this. We have to.

He nods. "The plans are in Walter's office. I know the code to get in. It won't take me long to get them. We'll be back in the car before Bobby's finished his sandwich."

We walk right up to the main security desk. A guard who might as well be Bobby's younger brother sits there. Same rattlesnake gaze, same complexion that says he's been working on his tan under the fluorescent tube lights overhead for decades.

"Leo," Jasper says, his voice deeper again.

"Jasper. What are you doing here?"

Jasper goes to point upward, but when the coat sleeve slides halfway up to his elbow, he drops his hand again and instead motions with his chin. "Electrical problem on twelve. My friend here is going to fix it."

"No one's on the list," Leo says, flipping through a clipboard of his own. What is it with these guys and lists? Not like anyone ever comes to audit a supervillain's standard operating procedures. Isn't the whole point not to have documentation of their business operations?

"We already talked to Bobby. He said it was cool. It's a quick fix."

"You won't mind if I give Mr. Wolfe a call? Any after-hours entries have to be approved by him." Leo lifts a phone from the console he's sitting at. It's a typical security desk configuration. A bank of monitors show footage from a dozen or more security cameras. The sight of them makes my throat go dry. I can see me and Jasper standing at the desk. Our backs are to the camera currently being displayed, but when I look around, there are two more behind Leo facing directly at us.

Leo and Jasper are still haggling. I dip my chin and casually pull the hat a little lower down my forehead. While they argue, I take a small step toward the desk, making it look like I'm leaning on it while I wait for a resolution. I can't do anything about the cameras, but maybe—just maybe—I can do something to buy us a little time.

The cables running to the monitors are all bundled together with zip ties. Slowly, I wrap a hand around them. I've never had enough power to do more than short-circuit a laptop, but maybe that's all that's required here.

I have to clench my teeth as I try to focus. Leo's rattling the clipboard in Jasper's face, and Jasper's calling him a jackass. I'd tell him not to lay it on so thick, but getting my powers to work at all is like trying not to scare off an orgasm, so I can't be distracted.

There's a burning smell like, probably as I melt the coating around the wires. I cough a little too loudly, hoping no one notices. Then there's a pop and a flash as sparks shoot from the back of one of the monitors. Leo yelps and even Jasper hops away in alarm. He gives me a worried look, but I can't tell if he noticed what I did or if he's only making sure I didn't accidentally set his favourite shirt on fire.

"Oh, hell." Leo pounds at his keyboard. When I move to stand a little closer to Jasper, the monitors are all completely black.

Fortunately, Jasper sees the opportunity and slings an arm over my shoulder. We're already moving, pushing past the desk. Leo tries to catch us as we go by.

"Hey. Hey, Jasper. Where are you?—"

"We'll start upstairs, then my friend here can help you with your stuff. Just make sure you try turning it off and turning it on again. Sometimes that's all it takes."

"Jasper! Wait!" Leo's flustered voice trails after us, but we're already stepping into the elevator and the door slides shut. For a moment, I lean into Jasper as relief floods me, realizing a second too late that he's dropped his arm and isn't touching me anymore. Embarrassed, I push away.

"Sorry."

"We won't have long. Leo's going to check the building systems and know there's no electrical problem. We'll go out the back before Leo can find us, but I'll need a few minutes to download the plans."

"Download?" When he said the plans were in Wolfe's office, I pictured a big roll of blueprints. Something hard copy we could grab and make a run for it. I could kick myself for not clarifying. This is why I was never going to make it as a superhero. Never mind the wimpy powers. I couldn't even think to ask what kind of plans Jasper was talking about.

He doesn't notice my upset. His gaze is on the elevator's display as it ticks upward. Eight, nine, ten. He says, "They're on his computer. He's got his own personal server where he stores his most confidential information. It was upgraded last year and can't be accessed remotely. I have to be at his desk."

"But once you're there, you'll be able to find it, right?"

"Should be." He throws me a smile that tightens too much at the corners to be truly confident. "I'm the one who set the server up for him."

The elevator dings at the fifteenth floor and the doors slide open. We don't exactly run up the hall, but we certainly don't linger either. It's only as we're ten steps away that I realize we aren't in some long office hall like I'm used to at Ziro Labs. The whole floor is glass. Walls, ceiling, even the floor is glass that looks down at the level below, which is some kind of vast white box with no furniture.

"What is this?" I ask.

"Told you he was a paranoid bastard," Jasper says. "The glass is all bulletproof, but he thinks the white room means he'll see the attackers coming before they can get to him."

"Who would attack him here?"

He winks. "That's the paranoia."

A voice in my head says it's not paranoia if someone's really out to get you. Someone's out to get me. I wish I knew who I'd pissed off enough to deserve this. Also, the white room makes the spectre of my next death feel very imminent. We need to get out of here in record time. I don't want my blood splattered on these walls.

We get to the door to the office—a giant slab of frosted glass—and Jasper puts his hand to the keypad on the wall. He says "Paleolithic" in a formal tone, then throws a look over his shoulder at me that tells me exactly how much bullshit he's playing with right now.

"Very funny," I say. My stomach is in knots.

He wrinkles his nose as he laughs. "We're not as fancy as you are." He punches in a complicated string of numbers—way longer than the code it takes to unlock my phone—and the light on the panel flashes three times before it goes green.

"How do you remember all that?" I ask.

"It's my birthday, then my dad's birthday, then the same numbers again but reversed."

"Which is coincidentally the code to get into Walter Wolfe's office?"

"It is if you're the one who programs the alarm system."

I glance over my shoulder. A camera watches us in the hallway. I'm so nervous I'm shaking.

"What exactly do you do here?" I ask as I follow Jasper into the lavishly appointed office. I guess if you work in a fortified fishbowl, you want all of it to look good from every angle.

"Officially, I'm networks and data security." He pulls back the chair from the chrome and glass desk and slides into it with ease, like he's done it before.

"Unofficially?" And how does a med student become the IT guy?

He glances up at me, lips pressed together. "I don't want to fight right now. I need to work. Watch the elevator," he says, face illuminated by the screen. "If it goes above floor five, tell me."

Great. After everything, I've become the "watch the elevator" guy.

"I can handle my own," I say.

"I'm sure you can," he says, but all his attention is on the computer. I grit my teeth because he's right that now is not the time to pick an argument, but I want to so badly. I hate being relegated to backup. It's all I've been good for my entire life. Failed superhero. Office drone. Now minion to the henchman.

I'm so busy sulking, I don't notice right away when the numbered panel over the elevator flashes, showing the car moving from the first to second floor.

"Jasper," I say.

"Yeah?" He doesn't look up from the screen.

But the elevator stops on two, stays there for a few seconds, then goes back to the lobby. I let out a slow breath. My hands move restlessly at my sides, prickling with anxiety. I struggle for a second to find something to say.

"The machine probably isn't in this building, is it?"

He glances up briefly. "Why do you say that?"

"It's like the Ziro Machine. We started building components at the lab but pretty quickly we realized if things went badly during assembly, we could crater the whole building in a millisecond. If a building that converts energy can do that, one that can reconfigure time could probably also blip us all out of existence if something breaks."

His attention is back on the monitor, but Jasper says, "Wolfe's got facilities all over town. If it turns out this really is a time machine, it would take a while to check all of them."

"How many do you think we can check between my tragic and unforeseen deaths?" I ask, going for humour, but the way Jasper's brow furrows together says I don't succeed.

"You can't think like that." He clicks the mouse a few times. I'm not sure how else I'm supposed to think. I'm on a clock no one can see.

A flicker catches my attention, and I glance at the elevator panel. Shit. Floor six.

"Jasper," I say.

His expression brightens as he looks at the screen. "Oh, found it!"

Seven. Eight.

"Jasper, someone's coming."