Stephanie focused on the piece of grass and pushed magic through her fingertips and over the blade. Then, without a question in her mind, she tossed the grass into the air and watched as it burst and transformed into a hundred different butterflies that swooped and swirled around her. She laughed and found solace in her abilities. If only she could stay longer, but she had her instructions. Besides, she would be back soon.

  “I’m ready to go back,” Stephanie called to her AI.

  The AI replied, “Close your eyes.”

  She obeyed instantly and waited a moment until her cool hand touched the bare skin of her belly. Just like that, she was back—no soaring scenes and no white room. Merely in and out, like walking through a door. The door hissed and opened slowly. She covered her breasts and locked her knees as she slid out. Elizabeth had her head turned away and held her clothes up.

  “Thanks.” Stephanie chuckled, took them, and pulled them on quickly.

  She zipped her dress and tapped Elizabeth on the shoulder. The woman turned and stuck her hand out to shake Stephanie’s. “Welcome to ONE R&D. As long as you can get back within a month, we are good.”

  While that weighed slightly on her mind, it was more of a nail-biter than a complete freak-out session. She merely needed to make sure to focus herself and get shit done. It was definitely worth it. Elizabeth looked at her watch and clapped firmly before she led her out of the room. She locked it and pressed a code to arm the security on it. “It’s 2:54. Perfect timing. Do you need me to walk you out?”

  Stephanie looked straight down the hall to the lobby door. “Nope. I guess I work here now so I got it.”

  Elizabeth snapped her fingers. “We’ll see you tomorrow, kiddo. And no need to dress up. Be comfortable, girl.”

  She chuckled and thought about all the clothes she’d bought. When she walked outside, her limo driver was already waiting, his arms out and his eyes wide. She giggled and gave him a thumbs-up. He gave her a high-five and opened the door. She climbed in, happy to take her heels off and put her feet up. Once she’d wiggled into a comfortable position, she grabbed her phone from her bag and frowned at a missed text. It was an alert from her bank to notify her that she had to come in to sign some documents.

  “Weird…maybe they already are processing me a bonus. Sweet.” She tossed it back in her purse.

  Back at the building, Elizabeth hurried to her office and created a report to send to the owner. She knew he’d already crept in on them anyway, but she intended to follow all the way through. Once she’d sent the report off, she grabbed her jacket and purse, flipped her light off, and locked the door. As she headed down the hall, she turned the light switches off and pulled out her keys. She locked the inside door, pulled it twice to check, and then made her way to the security board, where she punched in her key and pressed arm.

  An eye-roll was not even sufficient for the lackluster security system they had on the place. “I really need to upgrade that POS,” she muttered to herself as she left.

  A hoverbike turned the corner and came to a stop on the other side of the street from the warehouse complex. The driver kept his helmet on, the visor down to hide his eyes. He watched as the limo pulled out and sped off with Stephanie Morgana inside. He was about to turn the bike on again but paused as another woman came out the front doors and locked them behind her.

  The man drew a small tablet from his back pocket and scanned through the ambassador’s schedule but there was no free time for a review. He scrolled through the contacts and hit send, then held it up to the now open visor of his helmet. “Yeah. Yeah, she was here. And another woman, but only those two. I thought that since the ambassador won’t be open for review tonight, I’d get some tools and do a little recon. Find out what the hell they were doing inside an old dusty warehouse.”

  The control agreed. “Just go ahead and do it. No need to wait for dark.”

  “Roger that.”

  He turned the phone off, started his bike, and headed off to collect his tools.

  Ambassador V’ritan walked out of the meeting holding his books to his chest and with his robe hood still up. He grumbled to himself as he approached Brilgus. “Pompous idiots. How has this species survived as long as it has?”

  The guard toned his smile down and led the ambassador down the hall and into a private conference room. Once there, he smiled from ear to ear. V’ritan narrowed his eyes and threw up a spell of silence to hover like a shield around them. “Spill it. Why are you smiling so much?”

  Brilgus chuckled. “Stephanie called. She saw you on the news and her biggest concern was that she didn’t greet you properly. She wanted to take us to dinner, but she understood why we couldn’t. Also, she wanted to thank us for being so awesome.”

  V’ritan couldn’t help but smile too. He patted his companion on the back. “Thanks. I needed that to let me know this isn’t a world completely full of stupidity. Only the asshats in that room.” Then he paused, glancing up at Brilgus’s face. “Look after her for me, okay? Let’s keep her safe.”

  Although he hadn’t planned on waiting that long, after seeing how many people lived near there, the hoverbike driver didn’t get back until dark. He drove past the guard shack, knowing full well if there were someone in there, they would be holographic. He hurried the bike down and around to the back of the building. At first, he’d considered the front but decided to not be so bold.

  He found the electrical box and opened it to locate the wires connected to the system. With practiced ease, he plugged his small converter box into it and then to the laptop, opened it, and entered the information. Within seconds, he cracked the code and managed to turn the system off from right there. “What did they use to arm this thing? 1993 Brinks alarm? What a joke.”

  Still chuckling, he went to the back door, picked the lock, and strolled inside. His control watched him walk through via the camera on his helmet. He ran his finger over a shelf and sneered. “This place is clean. Too clean.”

  He wandered through the halls and found nothing but half-empty rooms and old offices. Finally, he ended up in front of the large steel doors. He grinned. “One of these things is not like the other.”

  His tools would no doubt prove their mastery once again, he thought smugly as he went to work. And tried like hell to get the door open.

  Chapter Forty-Eight

  The loud blare of the alarm on her tablet woke Elizabeth suddenly from her sleep. She gasped and raised her head, her hair in her eyes. For a moment, she listened into the darkness and finally realized what the sound was. She rolled over and tried to pull her leg from the covers. It got caught as she stood and threw her off balance, and she hopped and flailed across the floor. She gritted her teeth and growled loudly as she finally managed to find her feet.

  Thoroughly irritated by now, she snatched the tablet off the table, swiped right, and peered at the alarm warning. “What the—”

  Someone thought they were smart enough to break into the office by simply disarming the outer security system. “Little did you know, dumbass, that in itself triggers the alarm.”

  She was rightfully pissed, she decided as she fumbled for her clothes and pulled them on. Not only because someone actually had the nerve to try to break in, but also because the building sucked ass so bad when it came to security.

  “AI, wake up,” Elizabeth said and hopped around as she attempted to pull her boot on. “Call the cops and send them to the warehouse. I’m headed over there now.”

  “Of course. Be safe,” the AI responded.

  Elizabeth laughed. “Yes, Mom, of course.”

  BURT worked through gathering several of the programs he had spread out during the hacking attempt back into a more secure location. He didn’t want them all together but definitely couldn’t leave them dangling out in other countries. That could be catastrophic. He lost focus when a notification buzzed through his system. Someone tried to force their way into his special lab.

  Immediately, he was pissed beyond belief and turned his load and attention to the building. He scanned through the security camera and found the culprit right away. The man stood in front of the steel door and tried to figure out how to circumvent the single piece of equipment. The intruder selected a different tool and resumed his attempt, whispering to himself as he worked.

  He glanced at the camera but at that point, didn’t seem to care. Of course, perhaps he thought he had shut them off. “There must be something inside here. The outside security was too damned easy.”

  BURT immediately made notes that he would need to pay a hell of a lot more attention to the shit in the real world if intended to dabble with real-world things. That included having the appropriate security for any building that he owned or rented.

  Elizabeth groaned and held her hand on the horn. She looked out and down from her sky-vehicle and knew she had to shift down lanes to make sure she could take the right exit. “Hey, asshole! Try to pick up the pace instead of picking your ass!”

  He flipped her off and sped away. As she made her way down the lanes of traffic, the AI in the car had a field day with all the tickets she had accrued. “We have received a ticket for excessive speeding, four hundred dollars in Federation credits or coins. Another ticket for endangering birds by leaving designated lanes, six hundred dollars in Federation credits or coins. We have received a ticket for flying on a no-fly zone and endangering the buildings and architecture through the city, two hundred dollars in Federation coins or credits.”

  She jerked the wheel to swerve around a car and back again. The AI spoke immediately. “A ticket for changing lanes without using a signal, two hundred dollars in Federation coins or credits. Passing on a one-way fly-way, six hundred dollars in Federation coins or credits.”

  Elizabeth yanked the steering wheel to circumvent the other vehicles while she screamed and went wild at the people who wouldn’t let her over. The AI paused but didn’t stop. “Exposing a Federation ruled breast and nipple to the public, three hundred and fifty dollars. Un-ladylike behavior regulated by the Federation: grabbing crotch and screaming out, ‘Screw this little gremlin,’ thirty-six dollars in Federation coins or credits.”

  “For God’s sake! Shove the tickets up your ass and shit confetti,” she yelled irritably.

  The AI responded with silence. “Oh, shit!” she yelled as she yanked the wheel to the side, slammed on the brakes, and immediately pressed the accelerator again.

  The intruder jimmied the security code box on the door with three new tools but still had little success. He growled in frustration and threw them in the box. “Goddamned door.”

  His finger was bleeding, so he sucked on the blood and stared belligerently at the door. His gaze shifted through his tools and finally slowed on the dynamite patch that protruded from his bag. A new speculative light glistened in his eyes and he packed his stuff before he removed the patch and smirked.

  “For those times when a knock isn’t sufficient.” He chuckled.

  He stared at the patch and grimaced when he remembered the last time he’d used one. It was not a pleasant memory. He had picked concrete out of his back for weeks because he hadn’t run fast enough. That wouldn’t happen now, though. He simply wanted to get in and out as fast as possible. He peeled the back off the patch and attached the cables to the bottom. His first instinct was to apply it to the door but he shook his head and shifted his focus to the wall. He felt he had a better chance to get through that way than if he tried to bust through steel doors.

  BURT watched what he did and began a calculation of the different odds for the likely outcome. He ran them one last time, scanned them into his system, and created the reaction that would correlate with the answers. Suddenly, he startled and turned his attention back to the camera.

  >>Oh shit

  The spy hurried down the hall and around the corner, unwinding the wires as he went. He connected them to the detonation box very carefully. While he had already tucked himself safely around the corner, he really didn’t want to be surprised by a loud-ass explosion. He figured he would be safe there and the rest of the debris would damage the walls or whatever. It was merely a small dynamite patch, after all.

  Once everything was hooked up, he snickered to himself and flattened his back against the wall. “Fire in the hole—”

  A homeless man wandered down the block, smacked his lips, and spilled the one and only bottle of whiskey he’d managed to pick up that day. As he approached the front of the warehouse area, he hiccupped and fumbled inside his jacket to pull a white cat out. It mewed and rubbed its whiskers on his face. “We’re gonna get real warm tonight, Mr. Fluffy.”

  Suddenly, there was a huge explosion and the first building inside the warehouse area erupted in a truly magnificent blast. The homeless man fell back, landed hard, and coughed as smoke and debris filled his lungs. The blast had blown his eyebrows and Mr. Fluffy’s ass hair off.

  Chapter Forty-Nine

  Elizabeth gripped the steering wheel tightly and tried to fight the turbulence that threatened to jerk it from her grasp. “Come on, baby, get ahold of yourself.”

  The car shuddered and swerved, slewed slightly, and finally straightened out. Her shoulders relaxed and she exhaled a deep breath as she regained her control again. She leaned her head down and glared out the window. A brilliant flash of light was immediately followed by a rolling cloud of smoke and fire that swelled into the night sky.

  The AI came back over the speaker. “Loss of building, $1.2 million Federation credits or coins.”

  She rolled her eyes and hit the gas, shaking her head and mumbling, “That’s what insurance is for.”

  Angrily, she blinked at the billowing smoke in the distance, as pissed as hell that this was how her night had ended up. After everything she had accomplished that day, this was the universe’s way of saying thank you. “I’ll find these asswipes and make sure to get my money back.”

  Her phone rang loudly in the car and she jumped and swerved to the right. She swished her hand through the air to activate the onboard phone connection. The screen read, The Boss.

  Her nostrils flared. “Well, shit.”

  The cheerful chirping of birds and light strumming of a harp pumped quietly through Stephanie’s hotel apartment. Very slowly, the light brightened the room, and a scene of shimmering wheat fields covered all the walls. She rolled over in bed and stretched her arms overhead. A tremor of anticipation pushed through her and she smiled for a moment before she groaned and snuggled in for another minute.

  “Good morning, Stephanie. How did you sleep?” the AI asked.

  She grinned. “Like a baby with a brand-new lucrative career and a bed made from the clouds of heaven. So, pretty good.”

  The AI paused. “You have a new message on your tablet. Sender is ONE R&D.”

  Stephanie opened her eyes and snatched her tablet from the side table. She swiped left and opened the message screen, still astounded at how fast the Net was in the hotel. The message was from Elizabeth and she clicked on it immediately.

  Stephanie, your day at ONE R&D has been canceled due to lack of access to the building. Any and all training will be made up on your first day reporting for the job. As you are already in Washington and don’t leave on the TRAM until tomorrow, we have deposited funds into your account so that you are able to do anything you would like in the city today. Have fun and stay safe. We will be in contact soon. -Elizabeth.

  She pursed her lips and put the tablet down. On one hand, she had never seen DC before, but on the other, she really wanted to spend some time in the Virtual World. A little disappointed now, she pulled the covers back and hopped out of bed to wander into the dining area.

  “I took the liberty of ordering you your favorite breakfast and the coffee is steaming hot,” the AI informed her.

  Stephanie smiled and sat on one foot in the chair. She took a bite of bacon. “Thanks, Sarah. Will you alert the limo driver that I will be ready to go in an hour?”

  “Sure. Where is your destination? The remnants of the monument? The foundation of the White House? The shrine to the Third World War?”

  She shook her head. “No, only to the local pod rental place. At least to start with.”

  Her mind made up, she hurried through breakfast and stood for a moment as she considered her clothes. She didn’t want to wear anything special as she’d prefer to keep a low profile so simply threw on a pair of jeans, a hoodie, and a new pair of running shoes she had asked Sarah to have sent up. It took barely a moment to pull her hair into a ponytail and put a baseball cap on.

  The limo driver was more than happy to take her to a pod place, but instead of the closest, he took her to the nicest one. That way, she could also see the new reflecting pool they had built. It was the fifth one and included holographic images of DC historical features that traced peacefully over the water. It was nice enough, but Stephanie’s mind was on the pod.

  He dropped her there and circled the block to find parking. She didn’t have any issues, and no one seemed to pay any attention to who she was. Better yet, she definitely wasn’t recognized by anyone. The guy at the front was surprised that she wanted the best pod in the private room, but money talked and she had more than enough. He took her back and reprogrammed the palm security for the door so that she would be the only one to be able to access it when she was in there.

  Once inside the rig, she put the gloves on and the sensors on her head and recalled how amazing it had been in the other pod. While she wasn’t sure how this one worked, it was still awesome. She stood in the avatar closet room and scrolled through the bank robber game weapons. The batteries were not in stock and the note in their place claimed some sort of system malfunction. Instead, she chose a laser gun and two electric daggers and suited up. When she pressed the button, she was transported instantly to the non-magical side. She immediately began to run through and fired an ongoing barrage at the enemies.