Dangerous Designs (15 page)

There was no point explaining things to him. He'd have to sort through this on his own, eventually.

It wasn't for her to tell him that his peaceful world was under attack.

CHAPTER TWELVE

S
torey headed for the last door.

Eric reached it ahead of her and opened it. "There should be lights on." He scanned the room before crossing past the big oval table and to the door on the far end. Storey followed.

The meeting chamber didn't appear to have been used since she'd been here last. Cups and bottles littered the table and the chairs sat everywhere, as if pushed back in a hurry. It was consistent with an emergency meeting having been called or everyone having left at a run.

Eric disappeared into the next room. Only it wasn't a room at all, but a long hallway with doors set off each other in military precision for as far as Storey could see. The floor gleamed in white tile. The walls and ceiling sparkled in winter white, almost blinding her. Nothing but black hardware marred the pristine color.

"What's with all the white?"

"White is a power color here." He came to a stop at the third door on the left. He knocked.

The doors reached from floor to ceiling. Storey couldn't help comparing the building to an institution of locked cells. There was a real creepiness to the emptiness. "If there were people walking around, the place wouldn't be quite so off-putting."

He turned to give her a curious glance, then pushed open the door, calling out, "Paxton, are you in here?"

No answer. He poked his head around the corner of the door and called out louder, "Paxton?"

The stillness of a place that should have been teeming with activity gave her the willies. "It's not Sunday, is it?"

Eric pushed the door fully open, then paused to look back at her. "You ask the darnedest questions. What does Sunday have to do with it?"

"I don't know. I just thought that if it were Sunday, then it would make sense that no one was here. If you have church, that is? Or if it were night time? Could everyone be asleep? Are we even on the same clock?" She couldn't stop asking questions. Besides it would help take his mind off things.

His lips quirked. "Remember, we're still on the same planet. Same solar system. If it's daytime on one side of the veil, it's daytime on the other. It is Sunday, although we call it something slightly different here." His face became serious again. "But even on Council days, this building is always manned."

He walked through what appeared to be a small apartment, heading for the far side of the room. There was a weird set of cushions on the floor. Furniture of some kind. As she passed it, her leg accidentally brushed the edge and it moved. She jumped back, shrieking, her hand slamming against her chest. The pillows rose and adjusted, almost as if it were fitting to her size.

Eric snickered. "No church. No religion as you know it. The Council sets the rules for everything." His grin widened. "And we don't have time to play with the chairs."

Giving the piece a wide berth, she glared at him. "I don't consider a cushion that looks like it's going to eat me as funny, thank you."

"That's a polo chair." At her blank look, he added, "One size fits all."

She gave the cushion one last assessing look, realizing it had shrunk back down to its original size. Handy. The next room appeared to be a bedroom. She wandered around. What else was different over here? The bed looked normal, although higher than she was used to, with a small set of stairs on the side. No headboard, but a control panel of some kind had been mounted on the wall above some more weird looking pillows. She stayed well away from it, just in case it moved, too.

Everything was white.

Glancing down at her black jeans, black boots and her charcoal t-shirt, she realized she looked and felt like a dandelion among the roses.

Eric checked out the room and stood in the doorway of another room. She could only surmise that it was a bathroom of some kind. Not that she'd seen anything along those lines since she'd been here. As soon as the thought crossed her mind, she realized she needed to pee.
Damn
.

She headed in the same direction Eric had disappeared. It wasn't a bathroom. It appeared to be another workroom. "What on earth? Why would he have another lab here?"

"This is his private space. And the one other place I expected to find him." He ran his fingers through his hair in frustration. "Paxton doesn't
go
anywhere else. He can't. Where the hell can he be?"

"He
can't
go anywhere? Ever?" She studied the all white and silver room, so painfully clean she had to resist the urge to toss a cabinet to make it look normal.

"No. You don't understand. He doesn't do well in the outside – something to do with his extreme age."

"How old is he?"

"No one really knows. He won't talk about it. Somewhere between one-fifty and two hundred."

Storey choked. "Two hundred. What is the life expectancy of your people?"

He frowned. "Same as your people, I imagine. Although, we've stopped disease and slowed aging, so maybe not."

She blinked. "Did you say stopped? You mean you wiped those two things out? We could sure use that technology. We live to seventy or eighty and anyone who makes it over one hundred is considered ancient."

A weird crack sounded in the other room.

Pushing her behind him, Eric held his finger to his lips and motioned her back to the main living room. He snuck up to the doorway and peered inside. Something crashed to the floor in the other room.

"Crap. What was that?" she whispered, racing to his side.

"Get down." He yanked her behind the wall. "Are you nuts?" He stood up and peered around the corner. "Whoever it was is gone." Racing to the window on the far wall, he searched the outside grounds.

"A window?" She laughed and ran to his side. "That's the first one I've seen here. I wondered if you had them."

He shot another strange look in her direction. "You're really odd, you know. Come on. We have to continue searching." His voice had chilled. "Someone has to be left around here."

Storey followed in silence as Eric strode from door to door, opening each and every one, calling out constantly. No one answered. The place, the whole huge mausoleum, was empty.

"Do you guys have an underground bunker, a safe room, or something?"

"Not if you mean like a place to hide when under attack. Remember, we don't have wars. This is extremely unusual."

That's not the word she'd have used. But if this problem sidelined the death sentence on her head, she was all for it. She stood in the hallway and waited as he finished checking each door. Nothing. "Now what?"

"We're going to my place."

She perked up. "How far away?"

"Only a couple of minutes."

"Oh good. Do you have bathrooms here?"

He winced. "Of course. You are so weird."

"I'm weird. Look at the way you're acting. I'd have contacted the people I care about to make sure they were safe then I would check the media for updates. The Internet would be teeming with news. Look at you. You don't even know where to look. Do you have media here? Computers? Internet? Phones? How much research did you have to do to blend into my world?"

She was almost shouting by the time she finished, struggling to keep up with him as he followed a series of twists and turns. He came to standstill in front of yet another white door. It opened on its own.

"How'd you do that?"

"It's my apartment." He shot her a puzzled look. "Why wouldn't it open for me?"

"Gee, I don't know, maybe because you didn't open it with your hand."

"I don't need to, it's tuned to my vibration."

She nodded. "Yup. I can see how that might work. Not."

She walked into another sparse, almost utilitarian type of apartment. Eric's had even less furniture than Paxton's rooms, and it was equally as nondescript. There was no personality here. Nothing on the walls to liven things up. If she lived here, the first thing she'd do is get out her paint brush and color the world.

"How long have you lived here?"

"Again with the questions. Since I was old enough to live on my own."

Sensing this might answer a lot of questions, she asked, "How long ago was that and how old were you?"

"The same age as everyone else. Fourteen."

She sucked in her cheeks. The same as everyone else. So at fourteen, everyone in his world was independent. She kind of liked that. "How old are you?"

"A couple of years older than you. I think Paxton said you were what, sixteen, seventeen?"

"Yes, just turning seventeen." A loud buzzer sounded. Relief washed over his face. He raced to the far wall and placed his hand on a circle looking thing. A large screen materialized, taking up most of the wall at his head height.

"Greetings, Eric."

"What's going on? Where is everyone?" Eric stared into the blue screen. Standing beside him, Storey couldn't see anything but a blue snow. She had no idea who he was speaking with.

"We're under attack. Central is on lockdown." A computerized voice gave a general status report. Understanding filled Eric's face. "Who's attacking? We've never even had enemies before."

Storey winced at the shock in his voice. She already knew the answer.

"The Louers are attacking."

***

The blue screen died. Eric yelled, shoving his face right up to the monitor. "No, wait! I need more information. Where are you?"

The reception blinked off and on, then a cracked voice said, "Mansfield gate has been reopened."

Eric blinked. "Mansfield?" he whispered. Fear settled at his feet. It couldn't be. He raised his voice. "That's not a real place – is it?"

The static on the screen increased, drowning out the computerized transmission.

"Now that's a weird phone."

He spun, having forgotten she was standing beside him. "It's not a telephone. The visual is broken, that's all."

"So how do we get to Mansfield?"

No way. She couldn't go with him. She shouldn't be here now. The whole game had changed. This was no longer about saving the two of them; it was about saving his people and their way of life. "Not we, me. My country is at war. You shouldn't be here. Go home and stay there. Look for a place to hide over there, just in case. You might be lucky and the Louers will be too busy here to worry about attacking your world."

She made that cute little sound again. The one that was a cross between disbelief and thinking he was an ass. It had grown on him. Like she had. And that was dangerous. He had to help his people. He couldn't afford to be distracted.

"They already have, remember?"

"Not like this." He spun around, wondering if he needed anything before he left to find the rest of his countrymen. Distracted, he said, "Look I can't worry about that right now. I have to find the others. I wish Paxton was here. He'd know what to do."

"You need to go wherever you're supposed to go during lockdown."

He stared at her in confusion.

"He said Central was under lockdown," she said.

His confusion cleared. Right. Lockdown procedures. He'd been so caught up with the Mansfield gate news. "There's a second base in the basement. It's just never been used."

"Let's go."

"No, you should go home." He hesitated. It wasn't fair, but now that the worst had come to pass she needed to know. "They're going to blame you for this. There's no way they aren't."

"I'm not going there again. I'm not to blame. I contributed, yes. Because I didn't know what I was doing, but now that I do, I might be able to help."

He shook his head vigorously. "They are going to shoot you on sight. You won't get a chance to explain or help. They're going to look for someone to blame. You."

"All right already. Go." She pushed him out the door. "I can get home myself."

"I'll wait until you cross." There's no way he would leave her here alone. Not now. Anything could happen to her. He narrowed his gaze. He couldn't afford to back down on this one.

Storey stood eye-to-eye with him, then weary, she ran a hand through her black hair and eased back. He really wanted to snatch her up into a tight hug at that moment. He didn't dare.

Dropping her backpack to the floor, she pulled out the one sketch from Paxton's lab. "The same architecture has been used on the hallway. I should be able to get home from here."

She placed the picture on the floor and hesitated. Taking a deep breath, she looked at him one last time. "Take care of yourself."

He swallowed hard. The reality that this could be their last meeting settled into his gut. "Wait." He snatched her into his arms and kissed her. Hard. Just like last time, fire licked at his hardening muscles. Lust filled his groin, and the pain of parting filled his heart. He might never see her again.

He tore his lips away before he devoured her on the spot. "Please go home." He stepped back, afraid his legs wouldn't hold him. "I need to know you'll be safe," he said hoarsely.

With a crooked smile and without a sound, she jumped on the picture and through the floor.

She was gone. Just like that.

Bewildered, Eric realized she'd managed to take the picture portal with her again. Unbelievable. How she'd managed to learn so much without training amazed him. Time for her later, at least he hoped so. But not now. He couldn't afford the distraction. Not when his whole world was under attack. He had to find the basement, a place he'd never been.

***

It was a relief to step into her own bedroom once again. To know that she could get back. Having the portal in here was downright convenient, just not conducive to getting a good night's sleep. Who knew what or who else might crawl through? If only she'd known then what she knew now, she'd have created the portal somewhere else but still close by. Who knew that once opened, the portal was available to anyone from the other side. She needed her picture, but they had codexes and who knew what all else. It would be all too easy to end up trapped in her room. Or worse - wake up with a stranger coming through in the dead of night.