Out of the Black (14 page)

She looked up from her terminal with an amused expression. "Depends whose askin'."

Ping fished for his badge. "This is official bu..."

"Whoa,ick-draw!" She said playfully.

Ping stopped with his hand on his badge- her voice sounded familiar. He stared into her face, his brows knit with the scrutiny. Behind the acne-scarred complexion, ignoring the slight asymmetries of her face, he could just make out Rae. She must have noticed his eyes widen in surprise because she laughed. He stared slack jawed for a blink- she was almost completely unrecognizable. The beauty that had before been so evident now could only be glimpsed in the sparkle of her eyes, in the subtle arc of her smile. He managed to get his mouth closed finally. "What, no fake glasses and rubber nose?"

She nodded, smiling. "I know. It's pretty disorienting at first."

"What is?"

"Come on, we can't talk here. Your Fed pals have already been here- they tossed Alex's cube about an hour ago."

"Ah! My good pals! You talk to them long? Charming bunch."

Smiling, she collected her belongings into the already stuffed bag and stood. "Didn't talk to them at all. C'mon."

Ping followed her back out the door and into the stairwell. They ascended to the eighth floor, an archive reserved for storing historical books and paintings. Of course everything there had been scanned and was available in the library's online archives, but there were still some books and other items that were kept in hard copy for aesthetic or historical reasons.

Undisturbed darkness pooled behind the door's glass, turning the door into an obsidian mirror. As Rae moved forward, approaching her reflection in the dark glass, the door opened and darkness fled before the flicker of automatic lights. They were the first people on the floor.

The lights illuminated a wide central access aisle with a cluster of information kiosks surrounded by aisles of compressed shelving. The shelves were on tracks that allowed them to move to create aisles between them at the touch of panels on each end.

"It's kinda' funny," Rae said as the moved down the wide central isle, "This is the only place in the library you can find real books."

Like many library archives, this one was outfitted in the style of libraries of ages past. Ping surmised that the intricately patterned carpet, believable but veneered paneling and faux wood shelving was an attempt to achieve an atmosphere of knowledge steeped in the mystique of age.

Rae didn't stop until they reached the wall on the far side of the room. They stood in the box canyon made by the wall in front of them and the compressed shelving on both sides. Ping glanced around, "I'm assuming we're not lost."

Rae gave him a smile that was a window into the beauty she'd radiated this morning. "You'd be wrong about that detective." She raised her eyebrows and touched the access key on the end of the last row of shelves on their right. With a low hum, the six stacked shelves shifted away from the wall, leaving an aisle between the wall and the first movable shelf. "If we're not lost, no one is." The soft clunk as the shelves halted seemed to punctuate her words.

The new aisle before them was perhaps six meters long and less than a meter wide. At the other end, Ping could see another narrow access aisle running parallel to the central aisle. Across the access aisle was another stack of compressed shelves.

They entered the aisle with Rae in the lead. Halfway down, she stopagebefore a steel door in the wall on their left. She stood aside and gestured for Ping to enter.

Ping's key clinked off the featureless metal knob. He heard a mostly suppressed laugh from over his shoulder and turned to find Rae with a hand clasped over her mouth; laughter sparkled in her eyes.

"Sorry- just couldn't resist." She gave him a playful punch in the shoulder, opened the door, and strode into the darkness beyond, still smiling. After a second spent staring into the blackness, he followed.

The door closed behind him, leaving them in absolute darkness. He heard Rae fumbling for the switch at his left, then a faint chirp from somewhere off to his right. A rumble came through the wall, followed by a muted impact like the closing of a heavy gate. The shelves outside had again moved to cover the door. He was trapped... and fairly uncomfortable as a few seconds passed in darkness. Better safe than sorry...

The light came on, catching Ping in mid-draw. Rae turned from the light switch to face him and her eyes went to the half-drawn weapon. He slid the gun back into its holster with a shrug.

"I think he's getting slower, Rae."

Ping turned around. Ahmed sat against the wall at Ping's right with his expanded tablet on his lap. Ping's thoughts flitted between curiosity, amusement, his keys, and revenge.

The room was small, perhaps four meters on a side. The only light was from a still-flickering fluorescent utility tube in the middle of the ceiling. The dim light was insufficient to dispel the shadows that lingered in the corners of the room. The room was cluttered with cleaning equipment and spare desks and chairs. The walls were adorned only with electrical conduits and a large junction box. After surveying the room, his gaze came to a rest on Ahmed.

Ahmed looked to Ping for some kind of response. After a few seconds of Ping's most inscrutable stare he became nervous and busied his hands by twirling his tablet's stylus absently around his fingers. "You've got questions." He said at last.

Without terminating the stare-down, Ping held up the ring of keys, dangling them in the air between them.

"A necessary distraction." Alex said.

Ping tilted his head fractionally, gaze still locked on Alex.

Ahmed held up his hands. "Look, we couldn't talk before for a lot of reasons. You seemed like a pretty solid guy, you were also massively confused... this meant you would be getting pulled from the case any minute- one way or another, depending on how much you discovered."

Ping raised his eyebrows, surprised.

Ahmed continued. "How did I know you already got pulled? Honestly it's because you're still breathing. Where to start... Look, I was serious about us being in danger. If they thought you were a threat, you wouldn't be here now. The Obscuring was for your own protection as well as ours, the keys were to make you look stupid, to convince them I'd Cast you good... but I admit that part was pretty funny, heh... Sparky was to bring you here."

"You know, even I didn't understand that, babe." Rae said from over Ping's shoulder.

"Bring me here? Why?" Ping said, not lowering the keys.

"We need help. We're in trouble." Ping continued to stare, so Alex continued, "Plus you ad a great draw... you even beat Rae, which is pretty impressive."

They both smiled at Ping nervously. He gave the keys a jingle.

"Ah! Gotcha!" Ahmed stopped twirling his stylus and made a few decisive clicks on the surface of the tablet. Thin music filled the air. "Just a few seconds here... I've still got the training wheels on with this stuff..." the music grew in intensity and complexity. In less than half a minute, Ahmed's eyes had lost focus on the tablet on his lap. His head swayed slightly, his shoulders moving in small circles with the beat.

Ping was having a real problem staying angry with these people. As he watched Ahmed bug out with the music he couldn't completely suppress his grin.

Then something shifted.

Ping stumbled slightly and Rae put a hand on his shoulder to steady him. He'd broken through the surface from the murky depths of confusion and up into forgotten clarity. The air in the dank little room tasted sweet. As he looked back over the day since he had left these two this morning, it seemed as if he had been sleepwalking. Now he saw things more clearly- of course he still had no idea what he was seeing more clearly... but it was clearer.

"What...?" He said mostly to himself.

"Welcome to the real world, Neo." Ahmed said, switching off the music.

"Huh?"

"Never mind. Look, that cloud of fog that just lifted was an Obscuring. I Cast you so that those keys from my coffee table would occupy a significant portion of your unconscious mind, disrupting your focus and making you susceptible to manipulation. That part was mostly for show... I coulda' Obscured you without the keys, but then they might not have caught on as quickly. They might have tortured you to death before they realized they didn't have to. Besides, it gave you something to do with your hands eh?"

Maybe he could stay angry with this guy after all. Ping was willing to give it the old college try. "Cast me?" Ping said, focusing on the anger management.

"Oh, here we go..." Ahmed ran his fingers through his hair.

"Cast me? Like in a play?"

"Nope. Like in a spell."

"Uh-huh, sure."

"Well, it's not exactly magic like chicken blood and pentagrams, but..."

"Ah, so now you're a wee Leprechaun eh? When'd I get a peep at yer wee pot o' gold?"

Ahmed looked frustrated. Not to worry though, he probably had a spell or potion to fix that.

"Explain the keys then." Ahmed folded his arms.

"Drugged my cornflakes. Some kind of mind control device attached to your computer." He knew it wasn't true, but he had to say something.

"Explain this." Rae said from behind him.

He turned around and barely held his mouth closed. She was beautiful again. Every line and curve was in its ultimate proportion and position. The most amazing part was that if he tried hard, he could still see the acne scars, could still see every asymmetry as it had appeared when he'd seen her on the fourth floor. But now her imperfections were the capstone in her beauty. This wasn't makeup or a hologram, she didn't look different- he was looking at her differently. There was a confidence in her eyes that was intoxicating.

He was speechless. As he watched, she put her hands behind her neck and unclasped a small black-on-silver cameo necklace. As her hands came down with the necklace, subtle changes appeared in her countenance. Proportions didn't change, but grew somehow less ingratiating to his eye. Imperfections unknitted themselves from the lattice of her beauty, drawing and distracting his eye. Her visual symphony devolved into a trio of tin whistles.

"Was that cornflakes?" she said with a smile that brought back the memory of her beauty. With a shock, Ping realized she was still beautiful; bright eyes and a quick smile illuminated the beauty of a warrior's spirit. After she realized that Ping was skipping his turn in the conversational flow, she held out the cameo. "Ok, let's play 'Find the Hoax'."

Ping took the necklace and examined it closely. The cameo looked familiar... it took him a few seconds to realize that the ebony silhouetted profile on the silvery background was Rae's. He looked up at her. "Turn to the left." She obliged, smiling. Yep.

"He gave you this?" His eyes shifted to Ahmed briefly. She nodded. "And you don't have a problem with that?"

She knew what he was talking about. "Boy did I!" she laughed.

"She said it was like buying her plastic surgery for our anniversary." Ahmed said. "I was lucky she wasn't wearing her gun."

"But eventually I understood."

"Understood what?" Ping asked.

"That it doesn't change how I see her." Ahmed paused for emphasis. "It just makes everyone see the Rae that I do."

Back to speechless. That was probably the sweetest thing he had ever heard. It had to be a line. "And you buy that?"

"You haven't seen him try to lie yet. It's pathetic." There was a mischievous twinkle in her eye, "Go ahead. Ask him if he has a teddy bear."

"Hey now!" Alex blurted out too quickly, blushing.

Ping turned the cameo over in his hands. The chain and back of the cameo were silver. He noticed a small etching on the back. A chill went through him as he bent closer... it looked like the same kind of mark that was on the pommel of Sieberg's retractable sword. He fished in his jacket pocket and came away with the collapsed sword. He flipped it over and examined the mark on the bottom, looking from it to the necklace and back. The marks were similar, but not the same.

"What's that?" Ahmed asked, looking at the sword.

"I was hoping you could tell me." He handed it to Ahmed. Ahmed turned it over in his hands. "This is Ivo's glyph, but I'm not sure what it's for... give me a second to Cast a Scan and maybe I can tell you."

"I think I can help you out with that one." Ping took the lock ring from his pocket and put it on. He held out his hand for the sword.

"Call me Alex, please." Ahmed handed it back.

"Ready?" Ping said. After a second's pause to allow curiosity to build, he thumbed the activating stud. As before, the sword rang from the hilt. In the small room, the metallic ring seemed to continue for a few seconds before finally fading away.

Seconds passed in silce. Finally, Rae spoke. "Honey, I know what I want for our next anniversary."

***

"Lab's here!" Anne said as she entered the ER.

She was feeling much better- almost good. The call to maintenance hadn't been as painful as she feared, but then she'd only told them that she thought something might be wrong with her locker door. She had a feeling she wasn't done answering questions about it yet.

Anne followed the screams to where Dr. Wyler waited.

"Just a sec," the doctor said while two orderlies and an EMT attempted to hold a Harm still enough for him to administer a sedative without breaking the needle.

Though she was already cuffed and strapped to the table, the Harm was fighting so hard that it took the orderlies another twenty seconds before they could fully immobilize her arm.

"His eyes open in their bathroom is the key!" the woman shrieked as she fought against her restraints and the four men, her expensive shoes kicking and her red-silver-white streaked hair drenched with sweat. Like most Harms Anne saw, this one was dressed for a hot night out; her expensive-looking black shimmering outfit was torn and stained with blood.

Finally, Wyler made his move and the needle went in. The Harm screamed incoherently. The needle came out and everyone stepped back. The Harm jerked and flailed in her restraints as the powerful sedative went largely unheeded through her veins. "You... won't be laughing on his swing. Only the mirror, the outside... only left." She moaned through gritted teeth, her muscles taut against the restraints.