I stared at Piper, confused. I'd never needed glasses, and feeling them now in front of my eyes—partitioning, so near—unsettled me.

She said, "They're tagging some subway station—Hatch got the spray paint." Was that all he had in the sausage cart? "One of these newbies could be a plant. They try feeding our position to somebody outside? Bad day for them."

From her hip pocket, she removed a cellophane sheet of browns nubs. They reminded me of those candy buttons I'd eaten growing up, which I had once found in a vintage sweet shoppe and offered to my own kids. Zach's take: "You basically, like, bite sugar off paper? Pass."

Piper didn't eat these nubs. She peeled one off and stuck it high on her cheek, then passed me the sheet.

"Take two. I don't know what the algorithms do with freckles, but we should mess with 'em if possible."

Tentatively, I unstuck a pair of squishy fake moles. I placed one on my cheek like Piper's and the other above the left corner of my mouth a là Cindy Crawford. I kept my face still and held my finger near my face, expecting them to slough off, but they stayed.

Next Piper produced a stack of cards. She cut them like a playing deck, gave me half. "In case they want proof."

I read the top one. OFFICER OF THE INFORMATION SECURITY TASKFORCE, NEW YORK STATE, above an Albany address.

My mind swam. The meaning of these business cards—which were convincing, embossed on creamy cardstock—troubled me, but worse: Piper's statement about newbies having a "bad day." If Hatch's bag blocked incoming and outgoing data, how would a plant feed the Mice's position? How would he (she) get found out?

Was Hatch going to inspect all the phones, maybe as they were tagging the subway stop? Scour the message logs? He wouldn't need to scour mine; Durwood's message was right there on my lock-screen like a confession.

Suddenly I had a stomachache. "Hey. Should we have phones?"

Piper looked up from her tablet.

"Just for authenticity," I said. "Because if we have cards, shouldn't we have phones too?" I forced a chuckle. "What kind of bureaucrat doesn't have a phone?"

She glanced in the direction Hatch and the other Mice had gone, consternation flashing in her face.

I offered, "I'll go, I'll grab them—yours had the red case, right?"

And took out, jogging through the tunnel, walking rapidly back above ground toward the subway. I caught up with Hatch two blocks from the plaza and explained that Piper and I needed our phones back.

"We're supposed to be bureaucrats, bureaucrats need phones!" I bulged my eyes urgently.

His green-inked face was stern. He said nothing but a moment later did bring the frequency-blocking bag forward.

I stopped myself from gushing Thank you thank you thank you, then fished around until I found our phones.

Then double-timed it back to the tunnel.

Piper was waiting, toes tapping, holding her tablet overhand. As I approached, she showed me the back of a business card. It had scribbled digits.

"My number." She traded me the card for her phone. "In case we get split up, which we might. That was smart."

I pocketed her number with a smile, grateful for the compliment.

After confirming each other's appearance, Piper and I took the tunnel to the south skyscraper. We paused outside the revolving doors. Without being obvious, I raised my eyes up the building face. This close, it seemed to sway—maybe they actually do?—and loom over me. A window washer's cart hugged the upper third, impossibly high, attached by cables partly obscured in clouds.

Piper said, "All that glass. All that shiny steel."

"Yeah." I felt like I should say something appropriate to the mission, whatever it might be. "All that money. Executives with secretaries and big bonuses."

"For real. But it's coming around." Piper led us inside, her jaw set.

I thought about those secretaries. About all the moms and uncles and brother-in-laws who worked here too.

The lobby was immaculate, a cathedral of marble and brass. A chandelier spiraled from the ceiling, a procession of gleaming crystal rectangles each offset a few degrees from the one before. The reception desk ribboned before the elevators in a luxurious sine-wave shape, manned by six receptionists with Nordic features.

Piper approached the station designated Visitors/Delivery. The receptionist eyed Piper's tablet.

"All devices must go through screening," he said.

"Naturally."

"Do you have any other electronics on your person?"

Piper slicked the counter with her pinkie, seeming to weigh answers. "I—well yeah, just a thumb drive."

The statuesque blond made a give-it-here motion. "It'll have to go too."

Piper reached into a inner pocket of her uniform but left her hand there. I could sense her reluctance to part with the object. Which frightened me. As cool customers went, you didn't get much cooler than Piper Jackson.

What if it was a bomb? Or the trigger for a bomb? Maybe it had some trace residues she didn't want analyzed.

Finally she slipped out a silver, oval-shaped object. It was the size of a plastic egg, the kind I've filled hundreds of times with Hershey kisses and easter grass.

Piper pulled it apart to show the USB plug, her face bored. Back to cool.

The receptionist took the thumb drive(?) and Piper's tablet, and walked both to a screening table. A woman carrying a square cloth and wearing baggies over her shoes received the items. She swabbed the cloth over both sides and all four edges of the tablet, then thoroughly about the thumb drive—inside and out—before placing it in a notched opening of a machine.

She depressed a button. A red plane of light passed left-to-right over the cloth, then back right-to-left.

I stopped breathing. The machine emitted a faint bee-bloop-bee sound.

Five seconds later, an indicator across its top shone green.

The woman walked the items to the receptionist, who handed them over the counter to Piper. "All set. Now who're you here for?"

Piper tucked the thumb drive securely back into her inner pocket. "eDeed International Solutions."

The receptionist tapped a few keystrokes at his terminal.

"eDeed International Solutions," he read off the screen, "88th floor. Elevator group C, smack-dab in the middle."

Piper thanked him, me smiling along like a dope, and we pushed through a metal turnstile to the bank of elevators. We boarded a packed car, wingtips crammed heel-to-toe. Drawing on my temp experience, I avoided awkwardness by watching the Captivate screen over the floor indicator, weather and cutesy facts. Piper, though, shuffled in place and kept squeezing her eyes. It reminded me just how young she was—and how possibly insane it was to be placing my fate in her hands.

At Eighty-Eight, we disembarked. The eDeed switchboard operator held a finger in our direction, finishing a call. Again Piper seemed ill at ease, fidgety.

I faced her with a lopsided grin. "Did you catch The Bachelor?"

She looked at me like I'd grown a third eyeball.

"New episode last night," I said. "It's all down to Tara and Stephanie ..."

My face pulsed with meaning, and now she did answer.

"No. Missed it."

I gave her a splay-fingered account of the episode—last week's, actually—that helped us blend into the eDeed lobby, natural as the fake fern in the corner or khaki-clad men beyond the frost-glass eDeed logo.

The switchboard operator finished her call. "Can I help you ladies?"

Piper said, "Here for James Keiter."

"Is he expecting you?"

"Yes."

"You have an appointment?"

"Yes. We're in his calendar."

"One moment please."

As she lifted her phone's headset and punched a four-digit extension, I shimmied closer to Piper and whispered, "Do we have an appointment?"

Piper touched her tablet. "You think I've been doing the last half hour?"

The switchboard operator watched us as her phone rang. I smiled, thumbs twiddling behind my back. A slogan on the wall read "No Survey Pins? No Crumpled Plat Map? No Problem! Let eDeed Revolutionize Your Records." Other hangings featured testimonials from the mayors of Trenton and New Brunswick and governor of Connecticut.

After speaking briefly into her phone, the switchboard operator announced, "Mr. Keiter is ready for you."

On our way to the man's office, I kept my eyes forward and tried not to see all the regular, non-fat cats meeting or pecking away at keyboards. What were we about to do to this company? To these people? Damage, definitely—but physical or financial? Before Ted Blackstone I would've assumed the latter, but now I wasn't sure.

Speaking of that heinous act, where was Josiah? Also—should I alert the guys now that I knew the target?

For that, I'd need some believable pretense for texting in front of Piper.

According to his nameplate, Jason Keiter's title was Vice President of Information Technology. He greeted us quizzically, holding his tie against his chest.

"Now you two are from—er, that taskforce?" he asked.

"We are," Piper said. "Your company's contract with the state of New York requires us to run some diagnostics."

Keiter seemed not to know which direction to face. A plodding man with cauliflower-shaped ears, he swung toward the hall, then his desk, then began tapping his slacks.

"I must apologize—I completely missed this meeting on my calendar. I knew the taskforce existed but I just never ... that is, I hadn't counted on you guys ..."

He floundered and didn't manage to finish the thought.

Piper said, "The government does hire black people. Affirmative action."

Keiter spluttered that wasn't what he meant, apoplectic, immediately offering to take us wherever we needed.

Piper removed her silver thumb drive. "Part A is a simple port scan. I can do it from any networked machine."

"Use mine, please." Keiter typed his password and pulled out his chair for her. "Okay, done. What else?"

Piper sat and plugged the thumb drive into the man's computer. She stared at the drive for a beat. For two beats. Was she reconsidering? Doubtful it would work?

Whatever the mental calculation, it passed.

"Part B is a visual inspection of the servers," she said. "Taskforce requires us to confirm the machines are secured. Perhaps you'll show Ms. Jackson-Horace the server room while I get started on the scan?"

Keiter hesitated. "Ideally I would stay and just, you know, watch. In case anything arises with the scan."

Piper bristled, her hand clawing tightly over the mouse.

"It never does," I jumped in. "My part's the exciting one. The visual inspection is usually where the action is." I licked my lips. "Plus I'm the nicer one."

He stuttered, "O—okay," and we left to the hall. Through the office glass, Piper shot me a grateful look.

Vice President James Keiter accompanied me to server room, chatting idly about thermostats and their business. I could barely believe what I'd just done: flirt with this aging, married (he wore a ring) man to clear the Blind Mice's path to sabotage. As he held doors for me and described eDeed's rapid growth—more than a dozen U.S. cities had recently migrated their property data here, ditching paper—I feigned scrutiny.

What percentage of employees had access to the server room?

Were there procedures for locking down entry/exit after hours?

Keiter answered all questions, then let himself into the server room with his badge, fingerprint, and a seven-digit passcode.

He asked, "Did you need to look at the SSL certificates?"

I felt my eyebrows travel up my forehead. "Sure. It's always good to, uh, to make sure of the paperwork."

He looked at me funny. "The certificates are digital."

"Right. Right of course, SSL." I smacked my head with an open palm. "Sorry, heard you wrong."

I followed along with his guided tour, groping for coherent follow-ups, preoccupied by what Piper Jackson was doing in Keiter's office. What I had allowed her to do.

Was she zapping all this property boundary data? Surely that wasn't possible. Surely eDeed had backups.

Keiter asked now, "How long do your colleague's diagnostics usually take?"

We were in a dim spot, away from any windows. He leaned into a rack of blipping machines, one elbow propped casually.

"It varies," I said. "Fifteen, twenty minutes?"

I cringed at the upspeak in my voice, which I was forever trying to eradicate from Zach's speech patterns.

Keiter nodded slowly.

Suspiciously?

"Are you inspecting other companies in the area today?"

"I believe ... so. Pip—er, my colleague has the full list."

"Probably doing Tyrell. Tyrell does a lot of state contracts."

"Tyrell sounds familiar, yes."

"Their CIO and I go way back, graduated from Carnegie in '91. Leslie's a machine. Bet they're all buttoned up."

"I look forward to talking to her."

"Him."

"Excuse me?"

"Him. Leslie is a man."

"Oh."

I blushed hard, flustered even though there was no earthly reason for me to know the gender of the Tyrell CIO.

"Well, I think you've satisfied our concerns," I said, deciding this interview needed to stop. "Shall we head back? See how the scan turned out?"

Keiter said he guessed, sure. He dropped his elbow with a sigh.

Back at his office, Piper was just unplugging her silver thumb drive.

"Perfect timing," she said. "Scan just finishing running."

The Vice President fixed the tuck of his shirt. "How'd we do?"

"Perfect score." Piper smiled crookedly. "No holes, no ports available to malicious code. State of New York's happy."

And we left. Past the switchboard operator, back onto the high-speed elevator, around the sine-wave reception desk. Piper stared straight ahead and so did I. A frozen string ran from the top of my head down my core.

Had the mission succeeded? Did Piper approve of my performance?

I had no idea.

Outside, there was zero sign of other Mice. Piper walked stiffly through the plaza, past Hatch's sausage cart, past the luggage store whose bathroom I'd hidden in.

She entered the stream of sidewalk traffic and turned right. Three blocks she covered with nary a backward glance. I felt a blister starting above my left heel.

At an alley behind a Duane Reader, Piper zipped sideways from the throngs. Her bike leaned against a dumpster.

"You did good."

I stood with hands on knees. While we'd been on the move, I hadn't noticed how hard I was breathing. My lungs were hammering.

"Thanks." I nodded toward the pocket of her uniform where she'd stashed the thumb drive. "Did it work?"

With a peek back to the sidewalk, Piper tucked herself L-like against the building's hard brick base.

"'Bout to find out."

She laid the tablet against her thighs. I knelt beside her, twisting my neck to see. She punched up nyc.gov and navigated to Property Records. Then Property Lookup.

Her index finger started a downstroke, then stopped.

"Need an address."

Transfixed by the screen, I didn't realize she was talking to me.

Her eyes budged up. "Please."

I scrambled around the corner and noted the drugstore's street number. Told Piper. She typed it into the search field.

A spinning-clock icon appeared onscreen. My gut clenched as the pixels changed, colors walking about a center point, green-to-red-to-purple-to-yellow, hypnotizing.

One minute.

Two.

Finally an error message replaced the icon: ADDRESS NOT FOUND.

Half of Piper's mouth raised. She slipped the tablet into a satchel bag hung over her bike's rear wheel.

I squinted. "So the city doesn't know where this is?"

"Doesn't know where anyplace is."

She swung a leg over her seat, lodged her foot in a stirrup. As she humped forward gripping the handlebar, her shirt rode up and I saw the bottom of her Mice tattoo.

"It's just temporary, right?" I said. "Scramble 'em up for a while?"

Piper kicked off for the road. With a dark look, she patted her uniform pocket. "This boy here don't do temporary."