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“I thought I heard your voice. What are you doing here?”

Carter looked at Jack from the corner of his eye. He wouldn’t say the real reason. The You Again gang didn’t do sympathy, at least not out loud.

“Jack needed my help with something,” Carter muttered.

“For the job?”

He nodded.

“I thought you were out,” said Greer.

“Guaranteed money is hard to pass up.”

She studied him for a second before turning back to the living room. Jack and Carter followed in silence. As they all filed in and found a place on the furniture, Jack couldn’t help but feel like they’d slipped right back into Fort You Again, to a time when no one understood a life beyond the present moment. Only Eli was absent. And Jules, of course. He’d nearly done it. He’d nearly brought his army back together one last time. Jack McCoy was still as Jack McCoy as ever, even if it took a little longer to feel it. And all that remained to prove it once and for all, to himself and to the world, was to steal that Master List.

12

Jack had just survived another day at the death offices when Carter called to say he was nearly done. A few quick stops later and Dale and Greer were in the car, the trio headed off to see his progress.

Carter held the door open as everyone filed into his house—all except Jack, who was bringing up the rear. Before he had the chance to slip inside, Carter went to push him back by the chest. His palm grazed Margaret’s bosom as the new reality of the situation caught up to Carter and he opted for creating a physical barricade with his body instead.

“I need you to promise me that none of this will come back to bite me, Jack,” he said, folding his arms across his chest. “I can’t have work finding out I’m participating in this.”

“Since when does that matter?”

“Since I grew up,” Carter said, a sharpness to his words. “Not all of us want to go through life running from responsibility. It’s taken me years to get where I am. I’m not sacrificing that. My part in this shit ends here, got it?”

“Got it,” said Jack, though he didn’t get it. Jack was only as diligent at work as he needed to be to maintain his Margaret disguise. Under normal circumstances he wouldn’t be caught dead—literally—much less alive in a corporate office. Why sell your soul—figuratively—when you can spend your life doing the things you love with the people you love, and having those things give you money in the end? But Carter always was the most straight and narrow of the generally crooked and unwieldy group, and Jack needed him on this, so he decided not to ask too many questions.

Inside, the little kitchenette bled into what had probably been a living room at one point but currently served as a makeshift art studio, canvases with paintings in various stages of completion leaning against every wall and propped against easels. Off to one side of the room stood a high-top table strewn with charcoal pencils and pastel crayons. Sprawled across it lay a giant sheet of paper scribbled with lines, pieces of computer paper inked with printer-etched photographs surrounding the central drawn image. Greer and Dale had already gathered around it, studying the details, when Carter ushered Jack over.

“It’s done,” Carter said to the group at large.

Jack slid beside Carter and Dale and stood on Margaret’s tiptoes in order to peer onto the table. The photos he’d spotted from the doorway were of the S.C.Y.T.H.E. offices from various angles, inside and out, bird’s-eye and straight-on. Reference photos. Jack may have been artistically impaired, but he knew enough to determine that much. The sketch itself was a little rough. A line drawing of lines. But that was all they needed, really. There were notes scribbled along the side, which Jack recognized from all the layout information he’d given Carter the night before. There was even a key along the top with symbols and short descriptions. Carter always did put his all into everything he did, even when he didn’t want to do it.

“All right, I’ll break it down,” said Carter, his voice a little weaker than it had been at the door. He hated the spotlight, even when it was only his oldest friends in the audience. “Entrance is here. Bathrooms here, here, and here. These are the break rooms. They’re all laid out exactly the same on each floor, except that the second-floor break room is about eight feet shorter than the others, going by the window placement. There must be an entrance to this Room of Records thing from somewhere in there, unless there’s a door in the hall.”

“Who’s this little smiling guy?” Jack said, pointing to an image in the key.

“That’s a broom. It represents storage closets.”

“It’s so happy.”

“It’s not important,” Carter nearly snarled. “The point is, your best bet is to try the second-floor break room. Weird placement, but it’s an older building, so my guess is they stuck the entrance there before break rooms were a thing.”

“Okay,” said Jack. “Thanks. Hey, this is really good, you know? You’re really good.”

“Yeah, that’s why they pay me the big bucks.”

“They pay you big bucks?”

“They pay me bucks. Consistent bucks.”

“You happy?”

Carter shrugged.

“Hard to compete with that broom,” Greer said.