14 (58 page)

Nate bit his lip and looked over at the wall where Aleksander Koturovic had spent some of the last minutes of his life making sure the world stayed safe.

“I know it doesn’t mean much,” the man said, “but I’m sorry for your losses. I understand you and Tim Farr had become friends.”

“We were. What’s going to happen to him? Officially?”

“There’ll be a funeral. Closed casket, full military honors. You can attend, if you like. He doesn’t have any next of kin.”

“I’ll take care of his stuff.”

“It’s already taken care of,” said the man. He hooked his thumbs on his pockets. “Nate, let’s stop beating around the bush. You’re not in handcuffs. We’re talking alone, like civilized gentlemen. You know what this meeting’s about.”

* * *

Nate found Veek waiting for him in the lobby. “Hey,” she said. “I was just about to come looking for you.”

“Sorry.”

“Roger was serious. They all headed over a couple of minutes ago. Debbie said they’d save us some egg rolls. I told her to order chicken pad thai for us if we missed the waiter.”

He nodded. “Good.”

She tilted her head at him. “You okay, Shaggy?”

Nate reached out and took her hand. “I just got a job.”

Veek blinked. “Just now?”

“Yeah.”

“Did someone call you or something?”

He shook his head.

The man in the suit came down the staircase, speaking quietly into a cell phone. He paused to nod at Nate, and before she knew he was doing it he shook Veek’s hand. “Miss Vishwanath,” he said. “Pleasure to meet you in person. For the record, my money was on you from the start, but I’m glad we’ll still have you on the team.”

He was out the door before she could respond. “What was that all about?” she asked Nate.

“I’m the new building manager.”

Her jaw dropped. “What?”

He led her back up the curving stairs. “The only catch is they want me to be more active than Oskar was. They’re hoping I can learn more about the building and maybe fill in some of the holes in their records.”

“They have records?” asked Veek.

“Yup. They’re giving me copies of all of their files so my staff and I can be up to date.”

“Your staff?”

He squeezed her hand and guided her down the hall to apartment 12. There was a gleaming brass sign next to the door. It fit the Kavach Building’s classic style.

NATHAN TUCKER

MANAGER

She smiled. “So I’m on your staff, is that what you’re saying?”

“If you want to be.”

“Are there rules about office relationships?”

“We could make some up. And then break them.”

“Cool.” She kissed him. “I think I could be up for this. How many files are we talking about?”

“Well,” he said, “let’s check it out.”

He turned the knob and opened the door of his new apartment.

It would be easy to say that
14
has been kicking around in my brain for about four or five years.

The truth is, though, that this story started many years back when I was a little kid watching the most terrifying television show at the time—
Land of the Lost
. I wasn’t just scared because this show was obviously a documentary shot with live dinosaurs. I was unnerved by the fact that no one else seemed to know about it. They’d teach us about dinosaurs in elementary school, but why was there no mention of lost cities or pylons? Why was no one teaching us about Sleestaks? Were they covering it up for some reason or did they honestly
not know
? How could there be this whole section of history so many adults seemed willfully ignorant of?

That thought has stuck with me for ages—that there’s more to the world than we’ll ever know or understand—and I’ve tried to work little threads of it into several short stories and books. The specific ideas that eventually became
14
were kicking around in my mind for about five years, but the truth is I’ve wanted to tell a story like this since eight-year-old me first realized that Enik wasn’t the descendant of the feral Sleestaks in the Land of the Lost... he was their ancestor.

How’s that for a geek reference?

Naturally, for a story that long in the making, it took more than a few people to help me pull it out and shape it. As such, some thanks and recognition are in order.

First, many thanks to Jacob Kier at Permuted Press, who let me take some time away from zombies and superheroes to tell a very different kind of apocalyptic story. After the last time I tried it, he had every right to say no.

Thom Brannon, author of
Lords of Night
and co-author of
Pavlov’s Dogs
, offered me a pile of Tesla research he’d built up from one of his own projects, which I gladly accepted. Bob Spencer at the Los Angeles County Public Works Department spent an afternoon on the phone talking about what happens to old building plans. Any deviations from the facts in either case were my own choice for dramatic reasons, not from any misinformation on their parts.

Chitra helped with Marathi names, pronunciations, and translations after I fumbled around on the internet trying to find certain words.

Tim is named after a friend of mine who’s also lent his name to a silver dragon. He’s always willing to help me with technical and computer issues in books, like designing Veek’s computer.

The usual suspects helped by reading early drafts and convincing me this book wasn’t
too
crazy and sprawling. Larry, John, Patrick, and David offered fantastic suggestions, encouragement, and also caught many things that slipped past me. Double that thanks for Felicia, my editor at Permuted Press.

And many, many thanks to my lovely lady Colleen, who continues to offer advice, critiques, harsh truths, kind words, and the still sometimes-needed reminders that I can actually do this.

—PC

Los Angeles, November 5th, 2011