Page 26 of Anarchy Missing

“That’s about all we got from that bit of code. But the Feds are combing through the whole thing and they’ll let us know if they find anything else.”

“So what do we do with this?” I ask, flicking the page in my hand.

“Well,” Randy says, walking around to the front of my desk to take a seat in one of the chairs. “Not much. We need more info. Hopefully we can get that from your boyfriend.”

“He’s not my boyfriend. He was never my boyfriend. He took me to the ball, that’s all. And then I left town a few days later and never saw him again.”

“Well, maybe…” Randy says, looking intently at me. “Maybe you could… try to get him interested in picking up where you left off?”

“Date him? You want me to date him? What if he’s a real criminal? I’m not dating a criminal. It goes against everything I believe in.”

“Which is why I trust you to keep it all straight. Not get caught up in him again, Lulu. We just need an in, you know?”

“He’s not going to trust me.” I laugh. “I work for you!”

“But…”

“But what?”

“Maybe you… get fired?”

“What?”

“Just listen a minute, Lulu. I know this isn’t in your job description but we’re in a tight spot, OK? He’s going to make contact, we know this. And what if you two go out to just… catch up on old times, then you get fired for inappropriate behavior?” I’m about to open my mouth to protest, but he continues. “Fake fired, Lulu. Not for real. Just a ploy to lure him into trusting you again. We have a feeling that this is just the beginning of their plan for Cathedral City. We think that Brooks guy—Thomas Brooks—we think he’s about to do something nefarious. You know he bought Blue Corp after that explosion and the whole corruption thing went down last winter.”

“Yeah. So?”

“Well, we have new evidence that he—and his friends, including your Case—were the whole reason Blue Corp blew up.”

“What evidence? I haven’t heard this.”

“It’s super-secret at the moment. We’re holding that very close as we build a case. But it’s all in the file.” Randy points to the folder in front of me. “On that flash drive. We have footage of that night, Lulu. Someone was recording from a high-rise while the whole thing went down.”

“Holy shit. Can I see it?”

Randy drags his chair around to my side of the desk, grabs the flash drive, and plugs it into my computer. Some footage begins to play that shows the tall spires of Blue Corp off in the distance. “Look,” he says.

At the same time, someone on the film says, “Is that a helicopter? Zoom in on that, dude.” Whoever is filming complies and zooms. The quality gets bad, blurs, then focuses. But it’s still kinda grainy.

Then something falls out of the helicopter. “What was that?” I ask.

“We think it’s a guy with a parachute. But just wait,” Randy says. “That’s not even the interesting part.”

When the ’copter gets right over top of the tallest spire, something else comes shooting out. A few seconds later it crashes into the top of the glass spire.

“What the hell?” I ask. “Was that a… a motorcycle?” It can’t be. Who the hell drives a motorcycle out of a helicopter?

“Keep watching,” Randy says.

There’s not much else to see as the seconds tick off. But it must’ve been a lot more impressive in person, because the cameraman keeps saying, “Holy shit. Did you see that? Holy fuck, I think that was a grenade!”

The helicopter hovers the entire time, then some kind of grappling line flies down, along with another man, and that’s when things really go crazy with flashes of what I can assume is gunfire. That grappling hook thing starts bringing people back up. I count four, total. And then the spire explodes as they fly away.

“Wow,” I say.

“That’s not all,” Randy says. “Keep watching.”

The camera follows the helicopter until the tiny lights disappear. Then the footage goes black, but then it flicks to life again. “What was that?” the guy who is not the cameraman says.

“The Asylum just exploded!” the cameraman yells. “Holy fuck, holy fuck—”

Randy turns it off. “That’s what really happened, Lulu. That night Blue Corp exploded. And then Thomas Brooks made an announcement telling the whole world he was taking over Blue Corp. Did you know that Blue Corp owns the power company? And the water treatment plant? When Brooks took over Blue Corp, he essentially took over this entire city.”

I lean back in my chair, feeling exhausted after watching all that. “Wow. Was that really a motorcycle? That came out of that helicopter?”

Randy nods. “Bike Boy,” he says, like this explains everything.

And it… kinda does.

Lincoln Wade is Bike Boy. He did that. He crashed a motorcycle into the Blue Corp spire and then blew it up.

And he’s Case Reider’s best friend.

“They’re bad guys,” Randy says. “Really, really bad guys, Lulu. And we need to stop them before they fuck this city up even more than they already have. That’s why when Case Reider makes contact—and he will, Lulu—you’re gonna get close to him. I’m gonna fire you because of it, and then we’re gonna take these assholes down.”