Dangerous Designs (20 page)

Done.

Thank heavens for that. Now to get back and stop this solo act. She punched the button she'd used last time and the wrist unit went off in a series of flashes and beeps. The black mist rolled around her, bundling her in a tight tornado of swirling black. She closed her eyes, hating the sense of isolation this type of travel created. One could get lost in the mists.

A shudder rippled down her spine. Lost in-between. Not a nice thought.

The mists started thinning. She relaxed, closed her eyes. It would be over soon. Several minutes later, she opened them and frowned. "Why isn't this over?" Frustration and the beginning tendrils of fear twisted in her stomach.

She waited. The mists still surrounded her, but seemed maybe less thick? Or maybe that was her imagination. The weird black gate they'd used when re-entering Eric's world popped into her mind. That had had a similar feel.

Her uneasiness grew. Following her instincts. "Stylus, have we arrived?"

She could barely see the writing on the page, even when held up to her nose.

No.

"Damn." Something had gone wrong. How to fix it? What would happen if she stepped out of the mist? She'd most likely be torn to bits. She shifted her weight from foot to foot. Another few minutes went by and she checked her wrist codex again. The lights continued to flash with bright colors. Who knew what that meant? "Stylus, can we contact Eric in any way?"

The stylus hummed.
Not at the moment.

"Can we contact anyone? What about Paxton?"

More humming.
Yes.

"Explain the situation to him, please." He should know what to do.

The humming intensified then shut off sharply.
Communication has been disrupted.

"Damn it. I can't just stand here in the middle of a transition. What can I do?"

No answer. Her stylus never moved.

She groaned at the silence. "What's the use of being able to communicate if you can't help me problem-solve?" More silence. The stylus, like any computer, could only answer direct queries. "Okay. Stylus, can I get out of the middle of this gate?"

Yes.

She brightened. "How?"

Time.

She snorted. "That's something I don't have." Just then the mist started to darken again. She spun around, terrified. "What's happening?"

The blackness deepened into a morass of seething energy unlike anything she'd ever seen before. It had taken on a powerful, negative feel. She cried out. "Stop. Stop. What's happening?"

The energy spun faster and faster. She screamed as the pressure in her ears built. She crouched down, covering her head with her arms. Pain ripped through her mind.

She collapsed to the ground.

***

"Paxton!" Eric grinned at his aged mentor. His disreputable looking group gathered around him, relief and joy on everyone's faces.

"Eric, Councilman. You made it." Paxton raced toward him, joy beaming across his tired face. "I'm so glad to see you are well."

The strain of the last twenty-four hours had taken its toll on the older man. His hair stood out in all directions. For the first time in Eric's memory, Paxton's robes were dirty.

"What's the status at Central?" asked his father, his massive bulk collapsing onto one of the many chairs.

"We're not sure. So far, you're the only ones I've seen. Except for Storey, that is. Communication's down everywhere." Paxton lowered his face into his hands and rubbed his cheeks.

"Storey? Did you say Storey was here?" Eric couldn't believe it. Fear and joy warred in his heart. She was supposed to be home safe, not caught up in this mess. "Where is she?"

"I thought you would know. She went to the basement to help you...then I received a garbled transmission a few minutes ago saying she was having trouble with the codex and needed help." He shook his head. "The transmission cut off."

"Where was she last?"

"We calibrated her taprin to arrive at your side, based on your codex. Only we didn't know it was lost. I tracked her until communications went down," he pointed to one of his monitors. "My stylus received only part of it."

Eric looked at him quizzically. "Your stylus?"

Paxton glared at him. "That little girl is too smart. She not only figured out how to use her stylus, but she also found out that the styluses can communicate with each other."

Eric's jaw dropped.

The Councilman leaned forward in shock. "What? An otherworlder discovered things about our way of life – our tools – that we didn't even know? How is that possible?"

Paxton faced him. "I'm not sure. She seems to have a very inquisitive mind."

"That's not good. Not good at all."

Before the discussion got out of hand, Eric stepped in. "She had to figure out what the stylus could do on her own. When you have training, you're told what you can and can't do. We never questioned what we were told. She's had to constantly question and test the capabilities of the stylus in order to understand it."

His father's bulbous face darkened like a tomato. "You can't believe she is smarter than we are. That's not possible. We are far more brilliant than those...those animals," he blustered.

Excited murmurs wafted through the group.

One tall, spindly man half-stood. "Otherworlder?" He looked around at several of the others. "Are you saying there's a girl from the other side of the veil here? Here, in our dimension?"

Eric winced. He'd forgotten they had an audience.

"Not to worry. She'll be caught soon. And terminated. I have a standing kill order in effect for her actions."

Eric's hands fisted in sudden fury. "Right. Her actions. And what actions were those? To pick up what to her was nothing more than a pencil? To have it become soulbound to her without her knowledge or permission? For that you've put a death sentence on her head?"

Silence.

Everyone turned to look at the apoplectic councilman.

"Lies. All lies. The Louers attacked us because of her. She's behind everything ill that's befallen us." His father stood, his bulk so rounded and unsteady that Eric wondered if he'd topple over any moment.

"She is not. She didn't let them in. We snuck into her world and carelessly left the instrument over there. Do you realize we've put their entire world at risk with our actions? She picked the artifact up. That's it. She never did anything to us. She even offered to help solve
our
problem, and you ordered her to be put to death."

Eric couldn't stop the bottled bitterness that flowed with the unfairness of it all. "She came back to help us – even knowing there was a termination order on her head. The Louers went to her house. Did you know that?"

"And you know what else? She
stopped
them. That little schoolgirl from the other side of the veil stopped the Louers from entering her home and her world. We should be thanking her, giving her an honored place for her bravery. But no, you set the guards after her. Ordered me to retrieve her, so you could dispose of her here. You're being blind and foolish in trying to wipe out the one person that could actually save us." His voice roared across the room, stunning everyone into silence.

Paxton moved first. Racing to Eric's side, he laid a hand on his shoulder. "Easy, Eric. I don't think that the Councilman understood the situation."

Eric shrugged off his hand. His bitterness came out in full swing. "Oh he knew. In his all-knowing arrogance, he even ordered my death – the death of his only son – should I fail to return her to face her sentence."

The murmuring moved from person to person in a growing wave of unrest. They faced the Councilman in collective outrage. "We have a visitor from the other side and you want to kill her? Are you trying to start a war with those people, too?" The big burly spokesman settled into a wide stance, his hands fisted. His face reddened in anger. "Am I to understand, we sent a team over to this little girl's world and left a soulbound item behind?"

Someone else called out, "How is that possible? Where's the soul it was bound to?"

The Councilman's red face swelled with temper. Eric watched him struggle for control. His father was a born politician, meaning a born liar. His father's face smoothed over and he beamed at them, then proceeded to answer their questions. "The person who owned the stylus fell seriously ill on his research trip to the other side. He was rushed back here before the team knew that it had been lost. We believe that the veil, combined with the severity of the owner's illness, weakened the stylus's bond. Since then it's been trying to come back home, using this young person as its vehicle."

A woman who'd been quiet up until now stepped forward, her little daughter clinging tightly to her hand. "Has she done anything to hurt us?"

"No." Eric jumped in before his father could. He faced the group, looking each person in the eye, trying to explain. "She's an innocent in this. We don't know if she had anything to do with the timing of the Louer attack, that's possible, but she's not responsible for this war. Even more importantly, a Louer entered her dimension by ripping through a wall in her house and I watched her banish him to the far reaches." He turned to face his father. "She came to help us do the same thing."

His father, the esteemed Councilman, snickered. "She came to help
you
. What is she, another of your disreputable friends?"

Eric's blood pounded at the insult. His father had never approved of his friends. Any of them. He'd gone out of his way to separate Eric from everyone. Thankfully, his father had never learned of his one and only girlfriend...ex-girlfriend. His jaw clenched. It gratified him to see his father backing up a step. Fighting for control, Eric finally managed to speak a moment later. "Of course you would put her down like this. She's never treated you with anything but respect, so I think you could accord her the same. I would be honored to count her as a friend. She has many qualities that I admire. Not the least of which is stepping in to lend a hand, even when her own life is threatened."

"That sentence can't be still in place," protested the woman. "That's hardly fair."

"No, it's not fair. Except my father, the Councilman, never rescinds an order. Even if it's wrong." His bitterness resonated throughout the room. He winced. He hadn't meant to let everyone know how deep this went. But then he'd spent a lifetime trying to live up to his father's expectations, even though he knew there was no way he ever could succeed. The dam had to break sometime. "It doesn't matter. I'll go find her and send her home again."

"Now wait. That's not right either," blustered the burly man again. "We need her."

The mother shook her head. "Not if it's going to cost her life."

The burly man turned on her so fast, she stumbled while trying to back up. She snatched her daughter up into her arms. "Why not?" he said. "Our lives are at stake now, too. Or do you want to go back into that black hole again?"

"That's enough." Paxton entered the fray. "Eric, regardless of her future, she's in trouble if she hasn't made it back yet."

"Right. Then it's back to the basement for me."

"No. She's left there. She's caught somewhere in transit."

"How's that?" Eric's heart hitched. With all the chaos around them, anything could have happened to her. Damn he wished she was here, safe and sound.

"According to the monitors, she left the basement over half an hour ago. She should have been here within minutes. I can only think with all the disturbances that codex travel is messed up. I have no idea where she is."

The young women stepped up. "Can't you contact her? There must be some way to reach her."

Paxton stared down at his stylus frowning. "She got her stylus to communicate with mine somehow." He turned his over a couple of times. "I've been soulbound to mine for over a century and never knew. Then, maybe mine can't. Stylus, can you talk?"

Silence.

He shrugged. "I didn't think so."

"How did she communicate with you?" Eric stepped up and stared at Paxton's stylus. "Did they communicate to each other?"

"Yes, except her stylus contacted mine. I don't know how to get mine to initiate a conversation."

Eric ran over to the desk and pulled up a stylus tablet. Holding it out to Paxton, he said, "Write down the question."

"This is foolish," he protested, but did as asked. His stylus made an odd scratching sound as he wrote, requesting it to contact the other stylus. "There." He glared at Eric, holding up the tablet for everyone to see. "Now what?"

"If she can answer, your stylus will receive a message."

Paxton snorted. "I doubt it. This stylus has been used in the same way for a long time. It's not going to open up communication just because I request it."

"No, yet it did at the request of her stylus, correct?"

"Which isn't going to help right-" His hand jerked. He gasped. Eric grabbed Paxton's hand and placed it on the tablet. The stylus immediately started to write.

"Lost." Eric read it out loud.

Paxton read out the last half. "Need help."

A gasp rose through the crowd. "How do we help her?"

"Stylus, can you get the coordinates of the other stylus?"

The stylus wrote down the word
yes
. Paxton's eyes bugged out. He spluttered, "This is impossible. You can't just talk to it. It's not alive."

"Why? It's your belief system that needs to shift here." Eric didn't care if Paxton was uncomfortable with this or not. "Stylus, please write down the coordinates so that I can key mine to match."

Instantly a series of numbers showed up on the tablet under Paxton's astonished gaze. "There, see? Now..." Eric ignored him and punched in the numbers. "Considering that the codexes are whacked right now, I can only try. Let's hope I can reach her."

He stared at Paxton. "Then again, if you come with me, I'll be able to communicate with her no matter where I end up."

Paxton shook his head vigorously. "No, I can't do any more codex travel. Go. If it doesn't work, we'll figure something else out. "