Chapter 4: Best Laid Plans

The temperature began to drop significantly once the sun went down. Unfortunately, Calix couldn't start climbing until after full night had fallen. The chance of someone seeing him would be too great with even the light of twilight upon him.

After careful consideration, he'd decided to scale the building on the Detroit River side; not directly in front of the river, though, but at an angle. The GlobalTech building was actually a complex composed of 5 buildings; a very tall round one in the center and four slightly smaller square buildings at 45 degree angles from the cardinal points of the compass – so a building each at the northwest, southwest, northeast and southeast compass points. All in all, a pretty and distinctive design – but not one particularly given to what Calix was trying to do. Carefully avoiding the roving patrols, he made his way to a small nook in the base of the southwest building on the far side from the river; the nook provided a convenient shadow to hide from GlobalTech security. With a practiced eye, he evaluated his target. If the buildings were closer together, it would be easier; no one would see him. Unfortunately, there was a full half a football field or more between the buildings; the shadows would help – he was, after all, only going to the fourth floor – but it was still going to be a little risky.

He ran into his first problem as soon as he got to the wall. There were tiny, almost non-existent finger- and toe-holds practically built into the window mounts. Too tiny; his gloves were extremely thin and lightweight but even as thin as they were, they were too thick to allow him to get a decent grip to haul himself up. He reluctantly took the gloves off and realized this was about to get even harder; the glass itself was warm from the conducted building heat but the outside air was already working its way south of frigid and was almost guaranteed to get even colder incredibly quickly in the late winter air. There was a very real chance of frostbite but he was going to have to risk it.

Biting his lip in thought, Calix checked the timer counting down on his helmet's HUD and realized he didn't have time for indecision; he'd timed the guard's movements earlier – they were circling in about ten to fourteen minute rounds and it had taken nearly three minutes just to get to this point. He considered for no more than a second and then moved back to his hiding place by the square building to await the guards' next pass. An impatient thief is generally fool-hardy and usually ends up either caught or dead.

Calix wasn't completely comfortable stealing. He tried to tell himself that he only stole from those rich enough to afford it but his excuse didn't quite quell his conscious. He knew that his father would be disappointed in him; he could remember his father telling him that he needed to earn everything he got. To his father, stealing was the way out for a man not willing to work hard enough to get things himself. He thought his father would understand the need this time, but it took him more than a few moments to push his father's voice back into its compartment.

While he waited, he considered his next move. The hand-holds were going to be perilous even without the gloves and he knew that the longer it took him to climb the building, the more he stood to get caught – and the more likely his fingers would go numb from the cold. Either would be disastrous and likely end in death. He had a hard choice to make but it really wasn't much of a choice. Pressing his lips firmly together, he turned to his next option.

He took off his backpack and pulled out the four suction bar attachments and put them on the front part of his calves and the front, flat part of his forearms. The suction bar attachments – what he called suction sleds – were flat pieces of black, metal tubing with an array of suction cups on each; while the leg sleds were connected at both ends – knee and ankle –and in the middle, the arm sleds were only connected at the elbow to allow the hand a rather large range of movement. The arm mounts ended in hand grips; apply the suction cups to a flat or near flat surface and squeeze the grips to create suction so the suction cups would bear weight. The leg mounts only had suction cups with no way to induce suction. To climb the building, Calix was going to have to alternate with his right and left arms - extend the left arm up, squeeze the grip to induce suction, pull himself up, then do the same to his right arm and repeat. The leg suction had very little to do with actual climbing; they were mostly just there to provide added tension and to keep him steady. The suction cups could be faster but were more prone to error; if at any point he failed to get sufficient suction for whatever reason, his night was going to finish with a sudden stop at the end of a very long fall. On the plus side, he was able to put his gloves back on.

Once the guards had made their rounds again, Calix wasted no time. He ran as hard as he could and, at the last minute, jumped as high as he could against the building. He slapped both arms against the panes of glass and squeezed both grips, letting the arm cups bear his weight until his legs made contact. Then, taking only a single deep breath, he began climbing the wall.

He had practiced this often during the previous summer when he'd made the sleds. They had executed flawlessly – but that had been during summer and against the normal if thick glass of an office building in the suburb of Dearborn. This was in freezing temperatures – the HUD indicated 31 degrees Fahrenheit – against 'Steel Glass'. Calix could only pray everything would work the same.

He breathed a sigh of relief as he started ascending the building. He only had about 70-75 feet to go, but it was a tiring way to climb. He caught himself blowing pretty hard before he had made it half way and he could feel the cooling trickle of sweat down his sides; the sweat was more an annoyance than a problem but it had nowhere to go – the armor breathed little and was fairly self-contained. He'd just have to make the best of it; it wouldn't be too much longer to the fourth floor and then he could take a short breather to let the sweat dry a bit. Thankfully, he was in great shape and exercised regularly. Still, his shoulders and arms were burning slightly by the time he made it to the 4^th floor.

The 'sweating' issue was an ongoing annoyance. This was the fourth version of the armor he'd made – well, the fourth working version; there'd been a few prototype pieces before the first full blown armor. The first- and second-set of working armor didn't breathe at all; they actually made him sick if he wore them for too long. The first was composed of only a single layer of carbon fiber chain mail mounted on what was essentially a rubber 'wet suit'; it had saved his life by stopping a bullet – but left him with broken ribs from the impact. He'd accidentally destroyed the first armor during some testing with liquid nitrogen.

He had been about to scrap the whole idea when he stumbled upon a dark web site that spoke of a polymer 'resin' composite that seemed to dissipate kinetic force across its length. There'd been no formula for the resin but enough statistical and incidental information for him to take a stab at making it. It had taken some time but he'd managed to come up with a base that he could mix with some latex that seemed to do what he wanted. The second set of armor was able to dissipate the kinetic force – but his skin didn't tolerate the latex-polymer well at all; every time he wore it, he broke out in hives. Thanks to the lack of air circulation, he also sweat profusely while wearing it; there's nothing more miserable than trickling sweat down hives – you just want to scratch EVERYWHERE.

The third version was similar to the second but he sandwiched the latex-polymer between two layers of the carbon fiber chain mail; it no longer touched his skin, so no more hives. He still had the sweat problem, though, so he modified it by cutting 'vents' in the resin layer. It was good, but still not good enough.

The third version was where he'd added the electronic helmet, as well. It was based off descriptions of the Confederacy's powered armor helmets and he'd managed to get his hands on a small shard of the facemask from one of those suits. The first helmet was crude and only included a clock and night vision.

The suit he had on was better, but far from perfect. He'd engineered some small pores into the latex-polymer which allowed some degree of air circulation but he still tended to have clothes drenched in sweat when he pulled the suit off. Of course, the helmet electronics were better and he'd added some circuitry to the polymer layer in certain places – but that brought up yet another problem; the suit barely stored enough power for the helmet, much less anything else. He had had some ideas about how to take care of that – including a smaller version of his fusion reactor he could build into the back of the suit (though the inherent need for the reactor to be unbending caused flexibility issues he could never quite solve) – but he hadn't had any time really to flesh out the ideas.

Reaching the fourth floor sent all of his other thoughts back into the compartments from whence they came. Focused back on the task at hand, he set his left arm next to his right and then squeezed both grips, flicking the locking mechanism with each of his thumbs. Cautiously, he tested each of the grip locks to make sure they would hold. When he was certain the sleds were secure, he released the left grip and rotated his left arm at the elbow where it was attached to the sled until he could grip the grips from the sled on his right arm. He held tight, careful not to toggle the locking mechanism, and made sure that both left and right sled were still secure to the building. When he was positive they weren't going to come loose, his right hand let go of the grip and he lifted his right elbow up and out of the sled. With his left arm now attached across the two sleds – attached to the left sled at the elbow and holding onto the right grip – it left most of the right side of his body to free to move around. It had, of course, a cost. He grimaced as his left arm took all of his weight, but the pain subsided after a moment; it was still a massive strain, however. Using his free right hand, he reached down to his right thigh and detached a long pole that was attached there.

The pole was rather thin and had a large circle on one end and a thin, handled grip on the other. The unit remained attached to his suit at about where his belt buckle should be by a long, reasonably thick tether that rolled out from a spring reel. With a grunt, he reached out far to his right and attached the large circle to the 'Steel Glass', pressing a button inset on the device as soon as it made contact. He hesitated the barest hint of a second until the small, dim LED which was mounted on the inset button went from red to green and finally winked off; the rounded base had an automatic suction pump built in that turned green for a moment when it was secure. Satisfied the pole wasn't going to fall off the window, he shifted his weight back and centered it on the sleds. He reached out with his right hand again, maneuvered the thin, handled grip until it was perpendicular to the building. He spent a precious few moments examining that the device wasn't angled too poorly and then twisted the end of the handle; immediately, a soft hum could be heard in the air accompanied by a soft, shimmering light protruding from the handle; at least, it was shimmering in his visor – the cutting tool was damned near invisible to the naked eye. Within moments of the hum, the arm began rotating around the circular device attached to the window, causing the activated handle to rotate around in a long circle.

The cutter wasn't an invention; at least, Cal didn't consider it one. It was basically re-purposing alien tech to fill a need. The circular glass cutting technique was probably as old as the glass itself; he'd simply added the automated rotation – but even that wasn't new. The cutting implement was – sort of. It had started as what the dark net called a 'force blade'; supposedly, they were used to great effect by the Sa'arm race. The force blade didn't have blades at all; it used near-zero width force fields to cut through darn near anything. He'd gotten pieces of one from the black market and had adapted the field generators so he could change the field length. Then he'd put it into a slightly smaller grip and attached it to the cutting rotator. He smiled inwardly as he watched it work; his cutter wouldn't stop at cutting glass – it could, with time, cut damn near anything.

It took less than a minute for the cutter to make its way around but it was a nervous minute. The force blade actually gave off a very dim light that might be noticeable in the dark of night; the dark net indicated the Sa'arm blades were truly invisible. He hadn't been able to achieve that, not that he really wanted to. The thought of a truly invisible blade made him shiver, just a little bit; how could he know where it was?

Hanging there, with literally nowhere to go if he were discovered, made Calix more than a little tense. Thankfully, as the cutter finished its circle and he heard the glass beginning to make the tell-tale cracking noise as it came loose, no one had noticed him. He wasn't out of the woods yet, though. As he was turning off the modified force blade, the cut section gave a small pop and fell away.

It wasn't totally unexpected – that was one of the purposes for the tether, after all – but the sheer weight of the cut glass was; the window must be far thicker than he originally thought. For a moment, he panicked, unsure if the cutter attachment would hold; all he needed was for it to tumble to the ground. If the sound of it hitting the pavement didn't alert the guards, they'd surely see the debris on their next pass. When the section yanked on his hip as the force of gravity was arrested by the tether, he was able to breathe again – or at least grunt; the damned glass weight a ton. He knew better than to fully relax, though; just because the cutter held the section now didn't mean it wouldn't come loose in moments.

Of course, it didn't rain but it poured. The cutter had a good enough grip on the 'Steel Glass' section to keep it from falling but the added weight wasn't boding so well for the suction sleds holding him to the wall. As the large part of the glass wall swung in an arc below him, he felt the suction sleds begin to slide dangerously. It was just a bit, but it was enough to raise a bit of panic in Cal's throat. Just before it looked like the sleds might give out altogether, Calix watched the rounded 'Glass Steel' portal swing back towards the hole it had come from. Thinking fast, he realized it was time for a gamble – and he was going to have to time this perfectly. The sleds wouldn't hold much longer and when they were done, so was he. He gauged the momentum from the swing, carefully lifting his left elbow up and out of the suction sled but letting it remain resting on the shelf of the attachment, all the while watching the glass section swing up like the pendulum of a grandfather clock. When that pendulum was reaching for the apex of its arc, he jerked his elbow off of the left sled, swinging on his left hand which still held the grip of the right sled. The momentum carried him up and over, his right hand grabbing the edge of the hole in the building. He released the sled with his left hand and brought it over to join his right. As he hung there, he shivered, realizing how near he was to falling to the pavement far below.

If he'd had his gloves off, the sharpened edge of the hole probably would have sliced off his fingers and he'd have fallen to his death. Thankfully, the carbon fibers in the gloves were stronger than the hole's edge. For a moment, he allowed himself to hang there, praying the suction sleds would not fail completely and clatter down to the ground. He didn't need the roving security guards wondering what they were and where they came from.

When the 'Steel Glass' hole clanged against the building, however, he knew it was time to move. Having the sleds or the glass fall to the ground wasn't the only way to attract the guards attention; the piece of glass banging on the building wall could do the job quite effectively all on its own.

With a grunt at the strain, he pulled himself up and in; his muscles were quivering from the exertion but he didn't have time to rest, yet. He turned back to the missing section of wall, ready to drag the dangling glass into the room with him. Unfortunately, the edge of the hole was sharp and the tension from the dangling glass had caused the tether to fray until it broke. With a curse, he jumped to the hole and just barely grabbed the other half of the broken tether before the glass section could fall; the tether was made from braided carbon mono-filament but the force blade had left quite an edge on the glass.

Carefully, he hauled the section up, hand over hand. He had a nervous few minutes trying to wrestle the glass section through the hole in the wall, but eventually he was successful. He leaned the section against the wall then collapsed next to it, breathing hard. Getting into the building wasn't supposed to be so difficult.

As he caught his breath, he detached the cutter and hooked it back on his thigh. He then stood up and, leaning far out the window, grabbed the two sleds still partially connected to the building wall. With a sigh, he made sure that all of his tools got put back where they belonged.

As he worked, he took a look around him. He could only see the variable green of night vision but the meeting room he was in certainly looked plush. A huge wooden table centered the room, with eight comfortable, cushioned chairs surrounding it. In the center of the table was what looked like a conferencing unit and against one wall was a long, multi-drawered credenza. With a sigh, he rose up and prepared for the next step.

He concentrated on his breathing as he took a few steps into the room, taking deep breaths and blowing them out. As much as he hated stealing, he had to admit that he felt alive. The rush of doing something most people couldn't – most people wouldn't even attempt! – gave him a feeling of pride and fulfillment. The climb, the entry – it had been difficult but it had also been satisfying; his blood was pumping strong and endorphins were flooding his brain. He enjoyed the thrill; him against obstacles; in a way, him against himself.

It was why he enjoyed parkour so much. He was testing his mettle against things he couldn't hurt and that couldn't hurt him back. If he succeeded or failed, it was all on him. His focus, his reflexes, his skill against the environment. When called on, he could hurt people; he could even kill them. He took such situations very seriously, however. There was a gravity to decisions like that which weighed on him; he reveled when it was him against the environment and gravely accepted when it was him against someone else. He preferred the former but life in Detroit all too often presented him with the latter. He preferred Espanto, the ghost, but frequently had to settle for Pockets, the enforcer.

Cal looked around the room in satisfaction. This hadn't been a random selection; there were several reasons why his entry had to be this room or one very similar to it. First, it shared a wall with an elevator shaft so he wouldn't have to walk far to hit the elevator. His movements had to be measured, sure and precise; if he wasn't careful, it would be all too easy to get caught.

Second, the camera viewing this corridor was a 'sweep'; it swept along the hallway back and forth every three or four minutes or so – but that was the full hallway, including the door to the room he was currently in. The time it took to sweep back and forth from just beyond the elevator was considerably shorter; all in all, he would have a long, leisurely forty-five seconds to open and board the elevator once the camera had passed. That forty-five seconds included the time it would take to get out the door and shut it behind him, get to the elevator, open it, get inside and get the door closed again. He could do it, but it was going to be tight.

Finally, but perhaps most importantly, this room had an old, outdated CAT 5 port that should still be active. It was a relic from a time long past – most everything in the building was wireless now – but it was important. GT's wireless network, while not unhackable, used a rolling encryption code that would have taken a long time to crack. The hard port, however, had little to no real security attached to it.

Chuckling inwardly at the opportunities obsolescence gave him, he pulled a small tablet from a pocket on his backpack and then connected it to the old, outdated CAT 5 port. A second to get an address and he was in. He started the hack going, targeting the elevator systems. The one he wanted was 1A_SE; he found it and released it but set the feedback circuit to continue to think it was in service on one of the bottom 3 floors. He instructed it to come up to the 4^th floor with the doors to remain closed. He looked for the camera feed stream to see if he could bypass it or loop it – and was disgusted to find that all of the elevator cameras were off. Evidently, no one wanted there to be any evidence of illicit coupling or something. He locked in his commands and then commanded the elevator to forget he was ever there. When he received an acknowledgment from the elevator's management software, he unplugged the tablet and stored it back in its pocket, along with the cat 5 cable.

Calix couldn't very well get in and out leaving absolutely no sign of his entrance but he was determined to leave as little of a trail as possible. The less he left behind, the less likely they would be able to figure out exactly how he moved through the building. Sure, they'd know he cut through the glass to get into Conference Room C – but not how he'd avoided the cameras and gained access to the upper floors. Who knew? Maybe he would need to access this building again in the future. It would also make it very difficult for any of this to get tracked back to himself or the Cholos.

Besides, he wasn't comfortable letting anyone else get their hands on his tech.

Rolling his shoulders to loosen them up, he walked to the door and opened it no more than a crack. Pulling his mirror from its pocket, he held it to the door crack and angled it up to look at the camera. Right on time, it swept by the room on its way to the far end of the hall.

Calix liked automated equipment. Generally, when a lot of money was spent in automation it was so less money needed to be spent on personnel. As a rule, companies didn't realize that automating security generally required more guards, not less. Automated stuff had a habit of breaking – or being circumvented.

Of course, he was opting for the least amount of breakage as possible. He couldn't give a flying fig newton about the money the company would need to spend on repairs. He didn't give a fart in the wind if the head of security lost his job; if he wanted to keep his job, he should have taken better care of the company's shit. However, breakage had a nasty tendency of being traceable – and the more expensive the breakage, the more willing a company was to determine who perpetrated the breakage.

Besides, it would have been an amateur move to try to disable the camera; the elevator camera would have been necessary – it was stationary and hard to circumvent directly, though he had a few toys for that possibility, too. The hallway camera was easily avoided using its own programming. Sure, tampering with the cameras stops anyone from seeing you – but the reason there are moving cameras is because usually there is one or more people watching them. Fucking with the camera is a sure method to let someone know something is going on. Better to leave the guards fat, dumb and stupid in their comfy chairs.