They moved quickly through the city, working their way to ArcDefense. The streets were mostly deserted now with all the people once crowding around either back home or at work. That was fine for Xaleyp and Mian—the fewer people who saw them the better. Not that it would make much difference now, after their experience back in the park. If the Arcadians knew they were there, they knew exactly where they were going and probably what they wanted from there. They could be walking directly into a trap.

“So, what’s the plan?” Xaleyp asked. His heart was thumping against his chest, both from the physical activity of running through the city and the appearance of the two men in the park. “We have no weapons and no idea what we’re walking into.”

“We have security passes. That’s one step better than whatever your plan was.”

“Passes that may not even work, and we’re out five hundred thousand credits.”

“That doesn’t matter now.” She pushed him down a side alley just as two Arcadian security drones rounded the corner ahead of them, flying by without stopping, their engines whining fiercely. “What matters is getting into ArcDefense and finding the files we need. What was your plan when you were going alone?”

“I don’t know.” Xaleyp’s eyes darted side to side as he thought, and his mind went blank, any idea he may have had disappearing in an instant. “I guess I didn’t really have one, I was just going to force my way in or something.”

“That’s a horrible plan.” She ran her hands through her hair and took a deep breath, spinning in the spot and pressing her hands together as she thought. After several seconds, she turned to him and held up her fake ID. “We have to assume that these passes will work, and that we weren’t fucked over back there. We should get to the building as quickly as possible, get in, find what we need, get out.”

“And if the passes don’t work?” Xaleyp asked. “Or if they’re waiting for us to show up?”

“Then we need to go in hard and fast, find what we need, get out. Same plan, different execution.” She shrugged and looked around the corner back onto the street. “It’s clear. Let’s keep moving.”

“Mian, you don’t need to do this, I don’t want something to happen to you too.”

“Like you can do this alone.” She scoffed and led the way down the empty road. “No offense, Xaleyp, but you’re going to need all the help you can get.”

They were almost running down the street, moving as quickly as possible without drawing too much attention, which wasn’t exactly a difficult accomplishment. There was still hardly anyone on the street, as if it had been specifically cleared for them. Just under a kilometer to the ArcDefense Corporate headquarters, somewhere in the distance was the sound of drone engines steadily growing louder.

Two more drones flew around the street corner ahead of them. They barreled towards the pair like bats out of hell, maximum speed, and they braced for impact. Then they stopped. Xaleyp, Mian, and the drones. All at the same time, just staring at each other, studying, waiting for the other to make the first move. The drones hovered up and down slightly, maintaining their height off the ground. They were eye level, and Xaleyp felt the sensors piercing into him.

Without warning, the drones rose higher and rocketed down the street, ignoring them entirely. Both of their bodies were shaking with nerves, and Xaleyp knelt down to cups his head in his heads. That was too close, way closer than he ever expected. They were unarmed. If those drones wanted to, they could’ve killed them without a second thought, but they didn’t. Why?

“What the hell was that all about?” Mian asked. “They know who we are. They know why we’re here. Why didn’t they kill us?”

“Maybe they want us to get to ArcDefense, but what good would that do? Why not just kill us now and be done with it?”

“Well, let’s not stand around and wait for them to change their minds.”

They took off as fast as they could, not worrying about who saw them. Arcadia knew they were there. There was no point in trying to hide it. They knew exactly where they were going. If they wanted to, they could kill them in a second. Why did they want them to get to ArcDefense? It made no sense, and it seemed to be delaying the inevitable more than anything else.

Finally, the building came into sight, rising above the ones around it. Both of them doubled over, their hands on their knees and breathing hard. The ArcDefense Corporation was the largest company on Arcadia, and its headquarters represented that. It was one of the tallest buildings in the city, a circular glass spire rising into the sky. Several leg-like appendages around the building provided extra support, emerging from the ground and attaching towards the middle. It was multiple tiers, each one narrower than the last as it went up. The bottom tier took up several city blocks, like a shining monument to Arcadia’s self-proclaimed superiority.

“That’s a lot of area to cover.” Mian wiped some of the sweat from her brow. She stretched her legs, getting ready for the final push. “At least we should only need to find one terminal. Once we have access to their network, we should be able to find what we need.”

“Mian, if you don’t want to do this, I’ll understand. Don’t feel like you’re obligated to do this with me.”

“I’ve come this far.” She placed her hand on his shoulder, and he felt an electric shock go through with the touch. “We’ll do this together.”

Xaleyp nodded. Inside, he still knew that if something happened to her, he wouldn’t be able to forgive himself. He should’ve stopped her from getting this far with him in the first place. If something happened inside…

They soon found themselves outside the large glass doors of the building. A steady yet slow flow of people moved in and out. They moved in a way that seemed they didn’t recognize the two strangers standing outside, going about their days as if it were as normal as could be. A large ‘AD’ was emblazoned on the glass. It flashed every few moments to spell out the entire ArcDefense name before changing back with a shimmer. They hadn’t seen nor heard any more drones since the ones that stopped in front of them, but why? To lull them into a false sense of security? To let them get what they wanted? The way Arcadia was acting made no sense, and it made Xaleyp more and more uncomfortable with each passing step.

The doors slid open for them as they approached, joining the other people entering. Inside was a reception desk to the left with a handful of people waiting in line, one impatiently tapping their foot and looking towards the other end of the room. A security desk sat in the center with some sort of scanner forming the only entry further into the building. A dark-skinned security guard stood to the side of the machine, keeping his eyes on the people moving through. He briefly glanced at the pair of them then kept scanning everyone else. He either didn’t know who they were, or he didn’t want them to know he knew.

Xaleyp and Mian walked to the scanner. They slid their passes into a small slot in the center of the inside of the machine. It drew them in one at a time, whirred as it scanned them, and spat them back out. As they were about to walk back out, a hand landed on Xaleyp’s shoulder. He turned to find the security guard staring at him with a puzzled look.

“Take the lift up to the seventy-ninth floor.”

When Xaleyp started to ask what the man was talking about, his eyes went wide and he shook his head before going back to looking over the entering people. Mian grabbed Xaleyp by the cuff of his sleeve and pulled him towards the lifts.

“What was that all about?” she whispered into his ear. “We’re supposed to try to not draw too much attention to ourselves.”

“The guard stopped me. He wants us to go up to the seventy-ninth floor.”

“Well, that’s the floor we shouldn’t go to then.”

The lifts were directly ahead of them with no one else was waiting for any of the six. The small atrium around them was suddenly empty, and silence filled the air. After several seconds, a lift to their right chimed and opened without any intervention from them. It was mostly plain on the interior, a simple circle with enough room for a dozen or so people and the hundreds of buttons for controls next to the door. They entered, and Mian pushed a random floor button, the holographic label saying one hundred and fifteen.

“Input received,” an electronic, female voice said around them as the door closed. “Seventy-ninth floor.”

“What?” Mian hit another random button, floor thirty-three.

“Seventy-ninth floor.” Mian started hitting random buttons quickly in succession. “Sev-Sev-Sev-Sev-Seventy-ninth floor.”

“Mian, stop.” Xaleyp grabbed her arm and stopped her from hitting more buttons. She looked at him with fear in her eyes. He felt himself starting to breathe heavier and faster. His heart pumped harder. “I don’t think they’re going to let us go to any other floor.”

What was waiting for them there? Why weren’t they allowing them to go to any other floor? Whatever it was, a horrible sinking feeling in Xaleyp’s stomach was screaming at him to get out and stay away.

The repulsor engines whined as the lift shot up the narrow tube, flying further and further into the building. With each passing second, he felt a weight in his stomach getting heavier and heavier. Everything was making him realize this was a horrible idea. As much as he wanted revenge, this seemed too perfect. The passes, the men, the drones, the guard, all the streets being empty. Everything just happened to line up for them to get in as quietly and efficiently as possible. Why?

The journey was shorter than he expected, bringing him out of his thoughts. With a brief hiss, the door opened to reveal the seventy-ninth floor. Inside was a large, open room with the lift in the center. Several rows of cubicles wrapped around the edges of the room, disappearing to the sides as the building curved. In each was a holocomputer on a desk with a chair, and a steady hum of electronics filled the room, emanating into his core. The one thing missing, and perhaps the most important, was people—there was no one working in the office. Even the lights were slightly dim, but the tall windows running around the edges allowed more light in, casting ominous shadows over the floor.

“This is creeping the shit out of me now,” Mian said. Her voice sounded unnaturally loud. She took a deep breath and walked to one of the holocomputers. It came on as she approached, a holographic screen appearing above the small circle. “Might as well get what we came here for, but this feels like a trap.”

Xaleyp didn’t disagree with her. After all, everything they were seeing and experiencing made him feel the same way. Why else would they let them get this far if not to lure them in with a false sense of security?

Mian sat in the chair and began typing on the keyboard. The steady tapping of her fingers on the tabletop seemed so relaxing, so soothing. Xaleyp walked to the window and looked down. They were hundreds of meters above the ground. Thousands of people were now walking down the streets, satisfied that they were inside. Cars were flying in every direction around the building and to other ones.

He shook his head to clear it and walked to another station. This wasn’t Mian’s job, she shouldn’t have to do it alone. The computer came on for him, sending the screen into the air and a keyboard onto the desk. He began to type when the device took control from him, locking him out and passing over dozens of different screens, bypassing firewalls and secure logins in a blur of activity that he couldn’t follow. Finally, it stopped at a file labeled “XVS765332.”