The Lofties (The Echelon Book 2) by Ramona Finn (no david read aloud .txt) 📕

key unlocks her computer—tap the red icon on your home screen.”

I blinked. “So I just—”

“Go. Before you’re missed.” Reyland gave me a shove, and I went. Lock came after me, light on his feet. We found ourselves in a bright corridor loud with the hum of technology. Muted voices droned behind doors further on. Keyboards rattled, low and constant. Lock’s breathing seemed loud, and I nudged him in the ribs. He broke into a jog, and I ran after him, heels catching on the carpet. We passed a door flung wide open, a man hunched over his desk. Our reflections streaked across his screen, but if he saw them, he gave no sign.

“Elevator number three.” Lock came to a stop, panting. “Got your light?”

I flicked it on. Its beam was bright, blinding. I trained it on the doors.

“Okay. On three... two...” Lock hit the button. The doors hissed open. I leapt blind, hit the back wall, and my foot slid on the railing. I flung my weight back, teeth rattling in my head. I skidded, then Lock had me, nudging me back to my corner. I’d forgotten to press fifty, but Lock hadn’t, and a moment later, we were moving. My legs seized around twenty, and I felt my balance waver. I bared my teeth and held on, palms slick with sweat. My flashlight was burning me, hot glass to my thigh, and still I hung on. I spat quick breaths through my teeth, counting off the floors. Thirty, and I was shaking. Forty, I was one giant cramp. Lock was groaning behind me, or breathing, or—

Fifty. The bell dinged. I jerked the flashlight up and fell, tumbling out of the elevator, knees burning on the carpet. Lock dropped down next to me, breath whistling through his nose.

“I hate those things,” he wheezed. “Like coffins on ropes.”

I heaved myself to my feet. “Did we make it?”

“I don’t hear any alarms.” Lock stood up, too, dusting himself off. “There. Her computer.”

I blundered toward it, jabbing sweatily at my phone. I felt drunk, off-balance, and I kicked off my shoes. It was a relief to stand flat, not tottering on my heels. I dug my toes into the carpet. “So I just tap this, and then...”

Lazrad’s screensaver blinked off. I stood staring at her desktop, at its scattering of folders. I tapped one at random and found a dozen more inside it. They had strange names, codes and numbers, long words all running together.

“I-munny...soo...?”

“What?” Lock crowded in next to me, and I watched his face fall. “I thought you could read.”

“I can, sort of. Can’t you?”

“I don’t know. A little. Why do you think I don’t text?” He tapped another folder, and another. I could smell his sweat, sharp as vinegar, and the blandness of his soap. “I know Decemites—I know that word, but I can’t... What do we do?”

“Just copy it all?” I hooked my phone to Lazrad’s dataport and dragged the whole desktop over. A progress bar popped up, ten hours remaining, then two, then half an hour.

“That’s still too long.” Lock straightened, knees popping, and went for the bookcase. “How is it you can’t read? I thought you were smart.”

“I told you, I can. It just takes time.” I found a key under Lazrad’s blotter and unlocked her top drawer. “What about you? Why can’t you read? How’d you pass your psych exam?”

Lock muttered something, too low to hear. He’d found a binder marked DECEMITE something-or-other and was thumbing through it. I narrowed my eyes at him.

“What’d you say?”

“I said I cheated off Samson. Happy?”

I snorted through my frustration. Lazrad’s desk was a bust, drawer after drawer filled with pens and old batteries. It didn’t look like she worked here, not really. Not on anything important.

“This is ancient,” said Lock, dropping the binder at his feet. “All the dates are thirty years ago.” He tried the next one, and the next, and he let out a whistle. “Well, hello.”

“What’d you find?”

“I’m not sure. Come look.” He swept the shelf clear, and I padded across the carpet. On the wall, where the binders had been, I spied a glowing panel.

“What is it? A scanner?”

“I don’t know. A phone, maybe?” Lock cocked his head. “It’s got numbers, and that star thing.”

“But no speaker.”

“No, wait. Hold on.” Lock broke out grinning. “I’ve seen one of these. It’s an old-fashioned combination lock. You put in the right numbers, and...” He flung his arms wide. “It’s gotta open something important, for her to hide it like that.”

“We don’t have the numbers.” I prodded at it anyway, and got a buzz for my efforts.

“Check under her drawers,” said Lock. “That’s where folks keep their passwords, taped under their drawers.”

I got down and checked, but Lazrad wasn’t that obvious. Lock felt under her blotter and behind her monitor.

“We have to guess.” I jogged back to the panel and stood chewing my lip. “What year was she born?”

“I don’t know—eighty-five?” Lock flipped her paperweight and cursed, finding nothing. I tapped in the year and got another buzz. “It could be anything,” said Lock. “Like, ten random numbers, or some word it spells out. And neither of us can spell, so—”

“Shut up.” I leaned my head against the shelf, my thoughts all in tatters. I felt sick, tense and shivery, with the sweat cooling down my back. “Help me think. What would matter to her? What would she care about, enough she’d—enough she’d never forget it?”

Lock made a hissing sound. “I don’t know. Prium?”

I tapped it in, 7-7-4-8-6. Bzzt.

“Figures. She only cares about herself.” Lock kicked at her desk, knocking her pen-holder to the floor. “I don’t know. Try her name, or just ‘me, me, me.’”

“Power.” I gripped the shelf, trembling. “That’s what she wants, Echelon and the Outside, all under her thumb. What year’d she take over?”

“Twenty-three twenty-five. But no way she’d—”

Beep.

“You gotta be kidding me.” Lock flung his hands in the air. The shelves slid aside, and he laughed aloud. “A secret elevator. Of course it