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“I’ll head over to Home Depot in the morning and buy one to replace it,” said Tim. “It looks like a pretty standard padlock.”

“Oskar won’t have a key for it,” said Roger.

“A little corrosion on the lock and he won’t question why his key doesn’t work, assuming he ever checks it. He’ll just assume it rusted inside, cut it off, and buy a replacement. Done.”

“What if he tries to open this one?” Xela asked.

Tim glanced down the hall. “I feel pretty safe saying that door never gets opened except by stupid tenants.”

A few of them chuckled, but the laughter died a swift death.

Xela and Roger got up, and the rest of them followed. Roger shook Nate’s hand while Xela gave Tim a big hug. Roger moved on to give Veek a clumsy embrace and Xela wrapped her arms around Nate and squeezed him. “Thank you,” she whispered.

He hugged her back and she squeezed him again. Then she released him and grabbed Veek. Roger and Tim had a manly handshake and exchanged punches to the shoulder. Then Roger and Xela headed down the back stairwell.

“I should go check on my friendly detective,” said Tim. “I’m sure there’s some way all tonight’s activity could get spun against me.” He gripped Nate’s shoulder, smiled at Veek, and walked down the hallway.

“What about you?” asked Veek. “Don’t you have work tomorrow?”

“Yeah,” Nate said. “Yeah, I do. I just...”

“What?”

He looked at her. “Does this feel a lot like we all just said goodbye?”

She shrugged. “Sort of, I guess. Isn’t it? Sounds like the Mystery Gang is breaking up.”

Nate smiled. “You never see what they’re doing the rest of the time, do you? No idea if they live in the van or they’ve got a home somewhere or what. Do they go to the movies or hang out with other friends or anything like that?”

Her mouth twitched. “Guess we’ll never know.”

“Suppose not.”

Veek took a few steps toward the hallway and her apartment. “Y’know,” she said, “we could go to the movies sometime.”

“What do you mean? Get everyone organized for a big night out or something?”

“Yeah,” she said. “Or it could just be, y’know, us. You and me.”

“You’d want to be seen in public with Shaggy?”

The twitch became a smile. “Shaggy wasn’t that bad. When they got older, all the girls realized he was a lot more fun than Fred.”

“Where would you want to go?”

“The Arclight’s nice,” she said. “We could see something on the big dome screen.”

“Expensive, though.”

“But they have the best popcorn.”

“If we’re talking about getting popcorn, it’s super expensive.”

“I’ll tell you what,” she said. “It’ll be my treat. I should have some extra cash after this assignment.”

“Okay, then.” He looked over at her. “Thanks for watching out for me.”

“Everyone deserves a night out now and then. Even poor slobs like us.”

“I meant...back there.” He tipped his head down the hall.

“Ahhh. Well, no problem,” said Veek. She looked at the floor. “You know, Xela’s probably really grateful. You saved her life.”

“I think it’s you guys who saved our lives. Maybe with an assist from the doorknob. So thanks.”

She smiled. “On behalf of the doorknob, you’re welcome.”

Nate sat in his cubicle and stared at his computer. There was an address form on the screen that had been there for half an hour. It corresponded to the pink return card on the top of his stack.

He’d done six of the forms so far. Six in three and a half hours. It was below his cruising speed of one every ninety seconds. A lot lower than the mythical one every fifteen seconds Eddie kept claiming he could do.

I was in space yesterday. Hanging by a doorknob in deep space.

It occurred to him, for the third time today, that he should switch to returned magazines. More bulk meant he could wear away a larger part of the pile. Like the last two times it occurred to him, he glanced at the mail tote full of magazines and then back to the screen.

The real question is, why isn’t anyone protecting this thing? If this machine is the only thing between us and the end of the world, why isn’t there a Marine base built around the damned thing?

Granted, the machine had stood in plain sight for over a hundred years without being discovered. Or, at least, without being reported. If anyone had found it, they’d kept very quiet about it.

He drummed his fingers on the desk and looked down at the pink card. It was almost lunch. He stabbed at a few random keys without thinking.

He’d typed SPACE into the last field he’d been working on. There was a fifty-fifty chance ALAN SPACE would either get a kick out of his new name or call to complain. If he called, he’d speak with Eddie, who would come talk to Nate. It was a safe bet Eddie’s talk would take at least five times longer than the phone call.

They have found us.

Of course, someone had discovered the machine. Or at least, where it was hidden. They’d chased Koturovic across the city back to Kavach. And he’d managed to keep it a secret, even though they killed him.

He tapped at the keys again and replaced SPACE with ALAN’s real last name. A few more keystrokes and he’d updated the subscription information. Seven in just under four hours. He tossed the card in the trash and peeled another one off the rubber band-wrapped stack.

Something wasn’t sitting right in his mind. He worked back through his thoughts and found himself at his mental picture of Koturovic writing his final message in blood. There was a problem with that image. Something gnawed at him. It was just out of sight, right on the tip of his—

“Hey,” Anne said, “did you want to do anything for lunch?”

Koturovic disappeared in a puff of mental smoke.

Nate looked up at her. He bit his lip and tried to make note of where his thoughts had fallen.

“Sorry,” she said. “Did I catch you in the middle of something?”

“Yeah. Don’t worry about it.”

“So,” she said, “lunch?”

“I brought a sandwich,” he said.

“We could just do cheap pizza downstairs.”

“Then I just wasted a sandwich.”

“I could get cheap pizza and you could watch me eat.”

He smiled. “So you’re offering to torture me.”

“Hey,” she grinned, “don’t knock it ‘til you’ve tried it.”

“Thanks, but I think I’m still going to say no. Besides, working through lunch gives me a slim chance of getting caught up by the end of the month.”

Her dark eyes fixed on him. “You know, the past couple weeks or so you’ve been a lot more focused.”

Nate chuckled. “Not according to Eddie.”

“I didn’t say focused on this. I just meant you’ve sort of...” She tapped her fingertips on her lips. “Do you mind if I say something a bit new-age sounding?”

“Are you going to read my aura or something?”

She laughed and it turned into a snort. “No,” she said. “You just seem like you finally found your purpose, y’know?”

He looked at her and thought about Aleksander Koturovic dying to protect the machine he’d helped build. The machine Nate now lived inside of. He thought of Tim, Xela and Roger, Debbie and Clive.

He thought about Mandy, too scared of the future to do anything.

He thought about Mrs. Knight, floating through space until she fell into an alien sun.

And he thought about Veek.

“I have,” he said. “I think I’ve figured out where my life is going.”

“It’s working for you, whatever it is,” she said. “Anyway, I’m dying for a break and if you’re not up for lunch what if we just—”

dying to protect the machine

“Fuck,” he said.

Anne’s brows went up. “Not quite where I thought this little chat was heading,” she said.

“Sorry. I’ve got to get out of here,” Nate said.

She smiled. It flitted across his mind that Anne had a spectacular smile. Not long ago he would’ve been thrilled to be this close to it, let alone be the one causing it. “Fantastic,” she said. “Lunch it is, then.”

“No,” he said, standing up. “I mean, I have to get out of here.”

Nate grabbed his backpack. He snatched up a few things from the desk and stowed them. He patted himself down, located his keys, and made sure his phone was still on his hip.

Eddie’s voice sounded from the door. “Everyone off to lunch?”

Anne bit back a groan and it became a quick hiss in her nose. Nate had heard it before. He’d made the same noise at least a dozen times. The dreaded Eddie’s-inviting-himself-along groan, often muted to an exhalation through the nostrils.

Nate looked at his boss. “I need to leave,” he said.

“For lunch?”

“For the afternoon. Personal matter.”

“How much have you gotten done so far today?”

“It’s a personal
crisis
,” emphasized Nate.

Eddie looked at the stacks of mail totes and shook his head. “I don’t know, Nate,” he said. It was the lecture tone, tinged with a hint of good-buddy tone. “You’re really far behind right now. Really far. I don’t think you can afford to take an afternoon off and expect—”

“I quit.”

The words leaped out of his mouth. For a brief moment he thought it had been Anne or someone in the hall. But Anne was behind him and she’d made a little sound that was half shock and half excitement.

Eddie blinked. His jowls flared pink and he blinked a few more times. “What?”

“I quit,” repeated Nate. The phrase threw a weight from his shoulders, and Eddie seemed to shrink as he said it. “I don’t have time for this.” He turned back to the desk and grabbed the few personal things there. His spare phone charger. A battered paperback dictionary. Some post-it notes on the monitor with important phone numbers he’d scribbled down.

“Hold on,” said Eddie. “You can’t quit.”

“No time.” Without that weight he felt strong. He stashed the items in his backpack, zipped it shut, and threw the strap over his shoulder. He locked eyes with Anne, halfway in her own cubicle. Her mouth moved silently.
You rock.

Eddie was still shrinking. His shoulders slumped and he looked a bit scared. “Let’s take a minute and talk about this,” he whined as Nate stepped past him.

“There’s nothing to talk about.” He checked the hat rack to make sure there wasn’t anything he’d forgotten. He found a battered gray baseball cap and decided to leave it.

Nate turned to the big man. “Goodbye, Eddie,” he said. He held out his hand and Eddie, flustered, shook it. Nate glanced past the big man. “Bye, Anne. Say goodbye to Jimmy for me.”

She blew him a kiss. “See you around, Nate.”

His former boss followed him into the hall. “You’re not going to quit your job in this economy, are you?”

“I’ve got more important things to do.”

He found a parking space a block away and jogged down Beverly to the intersection. A delicate framework floated in his mind, a three-dimensional outline of events. He didn’t want to focus on it and risk breaking the tenuous threads, but he was nervous about letting it out of sight.

As he crossed the street, he could see someone sitting on the second set of steps leading up to Kavach. His pace quickened as much as it could without turning into a run. He looked at Veek through the gate while he flipped through his keys. She wore a battered UCLA hoodie over a tank top. For a moment he let his mental construct slide away.

“Aren’t you supposed to be at work?” he asked after a moment.

“Aren’t you?”

“I just quit,” said Nate.

Her eyes lit up a little behind the thick frames of her glasses. “Yeah?”

“Yeah. I had an idea. Not even an idea, just...just a thought.”

“And it was worth quitting over?”

He shrugged. “Data entry seemed a little pointless after going into space.”

She smirked and nodded. “Are you going to be okay? Without a job?”

Nate shrugged again. “I’m good for a few weeks. After that...I’ll figure something out.” He opened the gate. “So what about you? Some people might think you were here waiting for me.”

She stuck her tongue out at him. “You wish. Just warming up. I called in sick again.”

“Isn’t that going to get you in trouble?”

“Maybe. I find it really hard to care, too, y’know?”

“I do.”

“So, what’s your almost-idea?”

He paused. The construct leaped back to the foreground of his thoughts and he took a moment to avert his mental eyes. “I don’t want to say yet. I’m still trying to get it right in my mind.”

Veek nodded. “As it turns out, I do have news of my own. Want to hear something sort of creepy?”

“Do I have a choice?”