Interesting Places (Interesting Times #2) (2 page)

Oliver and Tyler joined Sally at the
throne. “Well, that was something,” Tyler said.

“
Something
,” Oliver said.

Sally glanced over at Oliver. “Next
time we have to do something like this, we do it
my
way, okay? None of
this, ‘oh, let’s just go talk to him’ shit.”

“Fine,” Oliver said.

“Did you guys see how I was kicking
Dracula’s ass?” Jeffrey asked.

Sally knelt down and scratched the
cat behind the ears. It was the first time Oliver could remember her showing
him any kind of affection.

“You know,” she said. “I’m actually
starting to like you.”

Jeffrey purred enthusiastically.

Chapter 2

“I still can’t believe he was wearing
a cape,” Tyler said.

The four of them had waited in
Dracula’s throne room for long enough to make sure he didn’t have the power to
reconstitute himself, but after an hour all that had happened was Jeffrey
scattering the vampire’s ashes from one end of the floor to the other. “Doesn’t
this look kind of like litter?” he asked after a while, examining a bit of ash
stuck to his front paw. “It looks like litter to me.” The group left for the
airport before the cat had any further ideas on that subject.

They were currently 48,000 feet over
the Atlantic Ocean on their way back to San Francisco in a private jet owned by
Oliver’s new company, The Araneae Group. Oliver tended to think of the vehicle
as “the plane,” but that didn’t really do it justice. The plane resembled a
smaller version of the Concorde. About half of its cabin was laid out like a
comfortable living room with eight lounge chairs and wooden tables. In the rear
there was a bathroom and a room with two twin beds, and in the front was a
small kitchen area where simple meals could be prepared. Since Oliver had
joined Araneae a small litter box had been put in a corner of the plane for Jeffrey,
the cat having loudly complained he shouldn’t have to “hold it” when everyone
else had a nice bathroom they could use whenever they wanted. Oliver had never
actually seen the cat use the box, and he had admitted he preferred his box at
home. He just didn’t want to be treated like a second-class citizen.

As far as that went, their plane was
much like any other overly-fancy corporate jet, except for the fact that it had
retractable missile launchers in its wings and was capable of reaching Mach 3
if necessary. Oliver had never seen the plane in combat and hoped he never had
to, but he did find the vehicle fascinating. It was one-of-a-kind, as far as he
knew. Like many other things he took for granted now, he wondered where it had
come from. Neither Tyler nor Sally knew, and Artemis rarely suffered questions.
She’d just ask if he didn’t have anything better to be doing and go back to
sipping her tea.

Sally had put the plane on autopilot
and joined them in the cabin. Oliver had once questioned the wisdom of leaving
the cockpit unattended during flight, but the computer system that controlled
it had been designed by the technical member of their team and was capable of
performing most of the functions required for flight by itself, and probably do
them better than a human. Sally, the only pilot on the team, had told him that
except for takeoffs, landings, and dogfights, she’d just be getting in its way.

“The cape did surprise me,” Sally
said. “Isn’t that from one of your movies? I’ve never seen anyone actually wear
one.”

“Dracula always wears a cape in the
movies,” Tyler nodded. “It’s like a tradition. Lives in a castle, dresses like
he’s late for a costume party…”

“He looked like a twit,” Sally said.

“Is that why his mind power didn’t
work on you?” Oliver asked. “You were too busy laughing at him in your head?”
He and Tyler had been forced to admit they’d both been a bit mesmerized by the
vampire’s mental power when Sally questioned why neither of them had been more
useful during the fight.

Sally shrugged. “I guess I just
didn’t want to be his girlfriend,” she said. “Unlike two people I know.” She
smirked at Tyler. “You didn’t cry when I staked him, did you?”

“Oh, shut up,” Tyler said. “I didn’t
want to be his girlfriend.”

“I didn’t want to be his girlfriend,
either,” Jeffrey said. “His sexy powers were no use against me!”

“You were supposed to wait outside,”
Oliver said to the cat. “I thought I made that pretty clear. ‘Jeffrey, wait in
the car. Jeffrey, it’s too dangerous.’ Doesn’t seem ambiguous at all.”

“It’s a good thing for you I came in
when I did,” Jeffrey said. “Since you were about to be Dracula’s girlfriend.”

Sally laughed and scratched the cat
behind the ears. “You did good.”

Oliver’s cell phone chirped. He
fished it out of his pocket and glanced at the screen. “Artemis,” he announced.
“She wants an ETA on our landing.”

Sally glanced at her watch. “Five
hours, at this speed,” she said. “I can go up front and open it up if she needs
us there sooner.”

Oliver typed out a response and sent
it to Artemis. A moment later his phone chirped again and he read the reply.
“No rush,” he said, “but she wants us in the office when we land. Seven picked
up some kind of localized electromagnetic storm up near Sausalito and she wants
us to check it out.”

“What the hell is an electromagnetic storm?”
Jeffrey asked.

“I saw that on
Star Trek
,”
Tyler said. “It’s when…” he thought about it, “no, I’ve got nothing.” He
suddenly perked up. “Maybe this means we’re finally going to meet some aliens!”

Sally frowned. “I think it’s just a
fancy way of saying it’s a strong electromagnetic field,” she said. “Lots of
things cause that.”

“Like what?” Oliver asked.

“Sunspots?”

“Why would we be going to Sausalito
to investigate sunspots?”

Sally shrugged. “I don’t know. Maybe
it’s not sunspots. You can ask Seven when we get there. I don’t know why he’s
not checking it out himself, honestly.”

Seven was the technical member of
their team. Seven wasn’t his real name, and Oliver had no idea what his real
name actually was. He knew more about computers than anyone Oliver had ever
met, and interacted with them in a way that suggested they were not as much
tools to him as they were his friends. Oliver wouldn’t have been entirely
surprised to discover that Seven was actually some advanced form of
anthropomorphic computer himself, even though that didn’t seem very likely.
Then again, six months ago Oliver would never have suspected that one day he’d
be keeping company with a talking cat and watching Dracula take a stake through
the heart. Life could be very strange sometimes.

“He’s probably in one of his
agoraphobic phases,” Tyler said. “I remember once he didn’t leave the office
for 369 days.”

Oliver blinked. “
369 days
?
That’s over a year.”

Tyler nodded. “I know. It had to be
exactly 369 for some reason. I think it had something to do with prime
numbers.”

Oliver thought that over. “369 isn’t
a prime number.”

“Then I have no idea. Seven’s in his
own world. I don’t think even Artemis knows
why
he does what he does.”

“Any idea what we’re going to be
looking for in Sausalito?” Oliver asked Sally.

“I don’t know. Maybe some of those
Star
Trek
aliens you two are always going on about. It would be a change of
pace, at least. I’m getting pretty sick of vampires and lizard people. I’d be
happy with an old-fashioned ghost hunt right about now.”

“That’s…something you do?” Oliver
asked. Artemis had assigned him a stack of case files to read when he’d joined
Araneae as a way of providing him an education in what they did. There was very
little vocational training available for his current job, after all. He hadn’t
made much progress on the files, though.

“I haven’t, but this one,” she nodded
at Tyler, “told me some stories.”

“Ghost hunts freak me out,” Tyler
said. “I did one before I met either of you that was so bad, the guy I worked
with back then quit and joined the priesthood afterward.”

“Really?” Oliver asked.

Tyler nodded. “And he moved to
Cleveland, too.”

Jeffrey rolled onto his back and gave
an exaggerated wail. “Oh, no! Not
Cleveland
!”

“Be quiet,” Oliver said. “What do you
know about Cleveland, anyway?”

“It’s in Cuyahoga County, for one
thing.”

Oliver stared at the cat in surprise.
“Really?”

“Of course it is. See? I know more
about Cleveland than you do!”

Sally stood up. “I’m going to check
up front. I’ll give you guys a heads-up before we land.”

“I think I’ll find something to eat,”
said Tyler, heading for the kitchen.

Jeffrey curled up on Oliver’s lap.
“And I need a nap after my big fight with Dracula.”

Oliver scratched the cat’s shoulders
and he purred contentedly. “You were very brave,” he said.

“Damn right I was,” said Jeffrey. And
then the cat promptly fell asleep.

Chapter 3

They landed at a small airport just
south of San Francisco a little more than five hours later. The sun was
beginning to set as they unloaded their gear and piled into a Lincoln town car,
again with Sally behind the wheel. The three of them had left their own cars in
their office’s parking garage before the trip. Artemis preferred they take the
Lincoln when they were on “business,” if for no better reason than nobody near
an airport was likely to give it a second look. There were times that it paid
to be inconspicuous, and Artemis was a big proponent of hiding in plain sight.

“Think we have time to get something
to eat?” Tyler asked. Oliver suppressed the urge to roll his eyes. Tyler had
devoured three meals on their flight back from Romania. Eating was never far
from his mind, but somehow he never appeared to gain weight. To Oliver he
looked like Shaggy from the old
Scooby-Doo
cartoons, although he didn’t
recall Shaggy ever wearing a Hawaiian shirt, and Tyler rarely wore anything
else. Tyler claimed becoming a werewolf had affected his metabolism, but he
never seemed to stop being hungry whether he changed into wolf form or not.

“We should check in at the office
first,” Sally said. “If Artemis really does want us to hit Sausalito tonight,
we’ll get something on the way up there.”

“What would we even do?” Oliver
asked. “Walk around town and look for electromagnetic storms?” He thought that
over. “I don’t even know what one looks like.”

“I have no idea,” Sally said. “Seven
probably has equipment that can pick them up. Or, I don’t know, maybe we’ll run
into some flying cars. Whatever it is that electromagnetic storms do.”

“I want to go home,” Jeffrey
complained. “I miss my toys, and my bed, and my television…”

“
My
television,” Oliver said.

“
Our
television.”

“Fine. You didn’t have to go to
Romania with us, you know.”

“I get lonely when you leave me for
too long,” Jeffrey said. “Then I have to pee on your bed so you understand how
sad I was.”

Oliver nodded. Last month he’d left
the cat behind when Artemis sent him on a trip to South America to look into
reports that an ancient temple had somehow disappeared without a trace. The
noxious state of his house when he returned home had convinced him never to
leave the cat alone again, unless Jeffrey insisted on it. And quite possibly
made some kind of recorded statement promising that he’d behave.

Traffic was light on the way into the
city. Oliver had lost track of what day it was thanks to international travel,
but his phone’s screen told him it was Sunday. Downtown would be quiet, then.
The area around their office in the small financial district near the end of
Market Street was a hive of activity during the week, but a ghost town on
weekends. That was just as well. Oliver didn’t feel much like dealing with
crowds after their trip, and if they did wind up going to Sausalito tonight, it
would be an easy drive. They could be over the Golden Gate Bridge and on the
waterfront in half an hour, at most.

The Araneae Group’s main office was
on the 41
^st
Floor of a skyscraper not terribly far from Oliver’s old
office. He’d worked as an analyst at a small hedge fund there, and had always
assumed he would stay in that job until he retired. That was until one day an
assassin posing as a SEC investigator had tried to kill him in one of the hedge
fund’s conference rooms. Tyler had come to his rescue, shooting the assassin in
the head. And then, much to Oliver’s surprise, the assassin’s wound had healed
almost instantly and he’d continued pursuing Oliver, only to abandon the hunt
when he was betrayed by his client, one of the lizard people who had wanted him
dead. Even if Oliver had wanted to go back to his old life, it would have been
very difficult to just pretend none of that had ever happened, however unlikely
all of it may have seemed. Artemis had offered him the opportunity to do
something new with his life, and he’d taken it.

Now he did a different kind of work
entirely, although he wasn’t exactly sure how he’d describe it if he were put
on the spot. It said “consultant” on his business card, but that could mean
almost anything.
Paranormal investigator
might have been a better
description for what he actually did. In any case, it wasn’t something he could
talk about at parties, even if he were invited to a party and actually went,
which had not happened in recent memory. The Araneae Group had been legally
established as an international competitive intelligence firm, whose business
it was to advise clients all over the world. In fact, they had no clients, and
as far as Oliver knew they never had. Something would come to Artemis’s
attention, and she’d send them out to investigate. Money never seemed to change
hands. Oliver wasn’t sure where their funding came from, but Artemis had deep
pockets and connections in extremely high places.

As Oliver had expected, the financial
district was nearly deserted when they turned onto Pine Street. “We could hit
Chinatown later,” Tyler suggested. “Everything down here is going to be already
closed.”

“I want shrimp,” Jeffrey said. “And
noodles. Get me some noodles.”

“I’m never getting you noodles
again,” Oliver said. The mess left behind after the cat’s first attempt to eat
chow mein had required Oliver to hire a professional carpet cleaning company.

“Are you still whining about that?”
the cat asked. “I told you to cut them up for me.”

“I did cut them up.”

“I guess the pieces weren’t small
enough, were they?”

Sally turned the car into their
building’s underground parking garage and started down the ramp that led to the
lowest level. Like most buildings in the financial district, theirs had little
guest parking and nearly all of the spaces were assigned to tenants. The garage
was nearly deserted today as a result. The only other vehicle on their level was
a rusty old Econoline van parked near the elevator lobby. That was unusual,
Oliver thought. The van must have belonged to a contractor or an employee of
the building, but there was no company logo on it. On a weekday, the building’s
security officers probably would have turned it away at the gate. But come to
think of it, Oliver’s team hadn’t actually come through the gate today.

“That’s weird,” Oliver said.

“What?” Tyler asked.

“The gate was up.” Tyler glanced at
him curiously. “The garage gate outside. It was up when we came in.” On
weekdays, security officers would stand at the garage’s entrance, checking IDs
and turning away tourists looking for a cheap place to park before they headed
off to the Embarcadero to shop. On weekends a full-length metal gate served
that purpose, instead. Anyone working on the weekend could enter a code on a
panel outside and the gate would roll up, but it rolled back down once a car
passed through.

“I guess it was,” Tyler said. “I
didn’t notice before.”

Sally pulled the Lincoln into its
assigned spot near her Miata. “Maybe we’re going to be kidnapped,” she said
dryly.

Oliver eyed the van. “Well…”

She smirked at him. “Don’t worry,
Oliver. I’ll protect you.”

“Me, too,” said Jeffrey. “Me and
Sally are total badasses. Did you see how we handled Dracula?”

Oliver sighed. “I just thought it was
strange the gate was up. That’s all.”

They got out of the car, Jeffrey
hopping down onto the cool cement of the garage floor. The cat didn’t like to
be carried, considering it an undignified way to get around. That opinion could
change at a moment’s notice, though, and it often did. Jeffrey wasn’t exactly
consistent, but after all, he
was
a cat.

Twenty feet away the glass doors that
led to the elevator lobby slid open and Seven stepped into the garage. He had a
lean build, circular eyeglasses, and spiky blond hair that seemed to point in
every direction. Oliver had assumed the man must use a great deal of hair gel
in the morning and had asked about it once, but Seven had replied he’d never
used “product” in his life. When Oliver asked why his hair looked like he’d
stuck his hand in an electrical socket, Seven had muttered something
incomprehensible about humidity and walked away.

Seven wore a white lab coat and held
a tablet computer in his hand. He studied it for a moment, a worried expression
on his face. “What what
what
?” he muttered to himself.

Sally stopped in her tracks and held
up a hand to keep the others from advancing. “What’s going on?” she called, her
hands drifting toward the thigh holsters that carried her pistols.

Seven tapped the tablet with a finger
and frowned. “There was another burst,” he said. “Electromagnetic. Strange.
Shouldn’t be possible in here without…” he trailed off, looking at the van and
biting his lip.

“Without what?” Sally asked.

Seven’s fingers danced over his
tablet. “No,” he said. “Not possible. Not here. They’re gone. All gone.”

“Oliver!” Jeffrey whispered loudly
enough for everyone nearby to hear him easily. Quiet whispering was a skill he
had yet to develop.

“What?”

The cat nodded at Seven. “I think
he’s finally lost it.”

Seven shook his head. “No, not lost.
Not lost.” He stared at his tablet for a moment and Oliver saw what little
color the man had in his skin drain from his face. “Found. Oh, no.
Found
.”

“Found…what?” Tyler asked.

Seven looked up at Sally. “Run,
Sally! Run now!”

The back doors on the Econoline
opened and a man slowly emerged, stepping down right next to Seven. Oliver’s
first thought was that the man looked like he’d wandered off the set where
somebody was filming a science fiction movie. He wore a black bodysuit with
illuminated strips that ran down his arms and legs. Metallic plating covered
his chest, looking like something a motorcycle racer might wear for protection,
with similar reinforcements at his knees and elbows. His right eye looked
normal enough, but the left one glowed blue, as if it were being lit by a bulb
implanted just behind the eyeball.

All that was disconcerting enough by
itself, Oliver thought, but the black assault rifle the man held in his arms
was even more worrisome.

“Holy shit,” Tyler said. “I don’t
believe it.”

“What the hell is that?” Jeffrey
screeched.

“Cyborg!” Seven shouted, taking a
step away from the man. “Get out of here!”

The cyborg slowly turned his head to
look at Seven, moving as if he were exhausted, then raised one fist and
backhanded him across the face, sending him sprawling to the ground. He turned
back to the others. “Colonel Salera Rain,” he said, speaking as if with great
effort. He sounded as if he wanted nothing more than to climb into bed and
sleep for the next hundred years. As Oliver watched, something sparked on his
chest plate and made a noise like a fuse burning out. The cyborg, if that’s
truly what this was, appeared to be malfunctioning.

Oliver had never actually seen one of
the cyborgs before. He’d heard stories from time to time, and he knew he’d
undoubtedly learn more if he ever found the time to go through that stack of
case files Artemis had given him, but they’d seemed like a fairly low priority.
He didn’t know the exact circumstances, but Sally had been involved in a
conflict with them and claimed to have exterminated their entire race. At times
she seemed smug about it, but as Oliver had gotten to know her better he’d
started wondering if that was really the case at all. The Sally he knew was as
hard as nails and the best fighter he’d ever seen outside of an action movie,
but she was far from heartless. However deeply guarded they may have been, she
did have feelings.

At the moment, though, she just gaped
at the cyborg as it took a step toward them. Oliver couldn’t recall ever seeing
her rendered speechless before. It was like she’d seen a ghost, or perhaps
all
of the ghosts in the world at once.

“Colonel Salera Rain,” the cyborg
repeated. “You are guilty of genocide. For this, you are sentenced to death.”
He raised the assault rifle at her. “Rot in hell, you evil bitch.”

That got Sally’s attention. She
turned and shoved Oliver straight into Tyler, sending them both tumbling down
behind the Lincoln. Jeffrey squealed with fear. “Stay down!” Sally commanded.
Then she was running away from them, her silver pistols appearing in her hands
as if they’d been there all along.

The cyborg opened fire, but rather
than bullets, a bolt of blue energy shot out at Sally, just missing her head.
It slammed into the cement wall of the parking garage behind her, dissipating
into a web of blue tendrils that left a smoking scorch mark on the wall. Still
running, Sally returned fire. She was heading for her Miata, Oliver realized.
Maybe she intended to drive away and lead the cyborg away from them? Sally
wasn’t the type to run.

A flurry of Sally’s bullets slammed
into the cyborg, sending him back a step but not appearing to penetrate his
armor. He fired at her again, this time hitting the Miata. Sally rolled behind
the car and popped up again an instant later, using it for cover. She let loose
another barrage of fire until her guns clicked on empty.