Interesting Places (Interesting Times #2) (7 page)

Chapter 8

A week went by during which nothing
of any special note happened. There were no incidents involving ancient
vampires, none with werewolves, and no aliens made their existence known. To be
fair, Oliver had yet to meet an alien and wasn’t entirely sure they really
existed. Then again, he wouldn’t have been at all shocked if during his reading
he’d learned that Artemis and one of her previous teams had repelled an
invasion from another galaxy at some point in the past. Very little took him
entirely by surprise anymore.

Oliver finished going through the
files he’d been assigned just before lunchtime and went into Artemis’s office
to report. He waited as she set a clothbound book she’d been reading aside and
was surprised to see he recognized the title. “
The Other Side of the Sky
?”
he asked. “That seems like an odd choice for you.” He’d read the book as a
teenager. It was the first in a series of fantasy novels about a man who
traveled to a magical world and became a wizard.

“Why is that, Mr. Jones?”

“Because it’s not an ancient text
written in a language I can’t understand. I didn’t know you read for fun.”

“I do, but today I am not. You are
familiar with the book?”

“I read it a long time ago. It’s kind
of a Tolkien knockoff, if I remember it right. Elves and fairies and all that.
Did you know the author disappeared? I think it was during the 1950’s. He went
for a walk one day and nobody ever saw him again.”

“That may not be entirely correct,”
Artemis said. “However, it is not important at the moment. You have finished
the files I gave you?”

“I did.”

“Did you learn anything interesting?’

Oliver thought it over.
Everything
he had learned had been interesting, but he knew full well Artemis was going to
want him to say something specific. “I was surprised the Loch Ness Monster was
real.” According to the file, it had died of old age in 1847.

“Ah, yes,” Artemis nodded. “The poor,
lonely creature. Last of its kind for all those years.”

Oliver hadn’t thought of it that way.
The file hadn’t referenced
other
Loch Ness Monsters, but logically, the
creature had to have ancestors. “Yeah. I guess being unique really isn’t easy.”

“Are you referring to me, Mr. Jones?”

“No, I was thinking of Jeffrey,
actually. He said it could be lonely. I guess the same thing is true for you,
though.”

“Is it?”

Oliver’s eyes widened. “Oh, my god,”
he said. “Are there
more
of you?”

The corner of Artemis’s mouth
twitched up ever so slightly. “No, Mr. Jones. Not anymore, anyway. But that is
an entirely different set of files.”

“Really?”

“No. There are no files on me.” She
tilted her head slightly. “Well, that is not entirely true. There are certain
texts in which one can find references to my existence. When I was younger and
did not have the luxury of being anonymous, I had to keep a higher profile.
There were certain tribes, long ago, that worshipped me as a living deity.”

“Really?” Oliver asked. He hadn’t
heard
this
story before. “How did you convince them you were a god?”

“By the many miracles I performed.”

“You can perform
miracles
?” Other
than her apparent immortality, Artemis had never demonstrated any other kind of
power.

“Behold.” She studied Oliver’s head
carefully. “What is that, Mr. Jones, behind your ear?” She leaned forward, plucked
a quarter from the space just behind Oliver’s right ear, and then displayed it
to him. “And that is only one of my many amazing powers.”

“But that…” Oliver sputtered. “That’s
just sleight of hand! It’s the oldest trick in the book!”

“Of course it is, Mr. Jones. But a
long time ago, it was the newest trick in the book. Sleight of hand kept me
safe for a very long while.”

“Wow. I never even thought of that.”

“If you have a hat, I have another
miracle involving the production of rabbits.”

“You’re just messing with me now.”

“Yes,” Artemis nodded. “But I am
pleased that you have been learning. As we have very little else to worry about
at the moment, this is the perfect time to further your education.” She pressed
the intercom button on her phone. “Seven?”

Oliver heard a whirring noise and
then a metallic crash over the speaker. “Here,” Seven said a moment later.

“Does Mr. Jones have vault access
yet?”

“He’s in the system. He’s cleared for
the elevators and the turrets shouldn’t see him as a hostile.”

“Turrets?” Oliver asked.

“Thank you.” Artemis clicked the
phone off. “Go to Vault 3 in Santa Clara. Return the files you have finished
reading to the file room there and select new ones to study. There are rather
more than you would be able to read in one lifetime, so do not make your
selection too ambitious. You should also examine some of the artifacts kept
there and discover their purpose.”

Oliver nodded. “You want me to play
around with them and see what they do?”

Artemis shut her eyes and Oliver
wondered if she was counting to ten before speaking again. “I certainly do not
want you to
play around
with them, Mr. Jones. You will find that each
item there has a catalog number. You may reference the numbers in our database
in order to learn about their identity and purpose. I encourage you to study
this information diligently, and for the sake of this entire planet, do not
play
with anything.”

“Got it.”

“Be certain that you are able to
discuss some of these artifacts when you return.”

“Will there be a test?”

“Yes.”

“Oh.” Oliver hadn’t really been
serious with that question, but he knew that Artemis was serious with the
answer. “Okay, then. Um…I’ve never actually been to any of the vaults before.”

“There is a first time for
everything, is there not?”

“I mean, I don’t know where it is.”

“Ah, of course. Ask Tyler to drive
you there. It would be unwise of you to enter without knowledge of our security
protocols, in any case.”

“I can take him,” Sally said from the
door. Oliver looked up in surprise. He hadn’t heard her there. She shrugged. “I
don’t have anything going on and I’d like to get out for some fresh air, if
that’s all right.”

Artemis nodded. “Good. I am pleased
to see you taking initiative to help.”

“I’m just getting some air, not
saving the world,” Sally said.

 Artemis looked back at Oliver. “The
vault is very large. I don’t expect you to unlock all its mysteries in one
afternoon, of course. That would be quite impossible. Take your time, and do be
careful in there.”

“Could anything in there kill me?”

“Death would be the least of your
worries.”

Oliver was beginning to reconsider
his previous desire to get into the vault and start exploring. “I’ll take good
care of him,” Sally said with a smile that was probably supposed to be
reassuring, but had exactly the opposite effect. “Come on, Oliver. It’ll be
good for you to see what we’ve got down there. You never know when it’s going
to come in handy.”

Chapter 9

There wasn’t much traffic on the
freeway and they made good time to Santa Clara in Sally’s Miata. “You’re going
to love this,” she said as they approached the city. Her obvious excitement was
a nice change in her demeanor, Oliver thought. Getting out of the office
obviously agreed with her.

Oliver, on the other hand, was no
longer so sure this had been a good idea. Artemis had never explained exactly
what she’d meant by “turrets,” but there seemed to be only so many
possibilities. None of them involved a welcoming committee with punch and
cookies.

He would have had to admit to some
surprise when Sally exited the freeway and turned into a gated retirement community
with a large sign that read
Casa de Flores
out front. “You’ve got to be
kidding me,” Oliver said. “The vault is in here?”

“If you were looking for it, is this
where you’d go?”

“Well, no.”

“There you go, then.” She pulled up
to a small security booth next to the entry gate and handed her company ID to
the guard inside. He took a look at it and then scanned it with a handheld
device. Oliver heard a series of beeps, and then the guard handed the badge
back to her. He looked at Oliver expectantly.

“Your ID,” she said. Oliver gave
Sally his identification badge and she handed it to the guard, who put it
through the same procedure as before. Oliver heard the same series of beeps and
the guard handed the ID back.

“You’re good to go. This the new
guy?” he asked Sally.

“Oliver Jones, meet Handsome Dan.
Dan, this is Oliver.”

“Hey,” said Handsome Dan.

“Hey,” said Oliver. Oliver thought
Handsome Dan might have been more aptly called Average Dan, but he didn’t feel
the need to point that out.

“Have fun in there,” Handsome Dan
said. He hit a switch to open the gate and Sally drove through it, stopping the
car on the other side and waiting for the gate to roll shut before moving on.

Casa de Flores
looked to consist of about 40 small
ranch-style houses laid out in a rectangular grid. The houses were identical,
each with a single-car garage and painted tan with brown trim. It looked to
Oliver more like a painting than a place people would choose to live. “It looks
like they’ve got a pretty strict Homeowner’s Association here,” he said.

“We
are
the Homeowner’s
Association.”

“Seriously? Araneae owns all these
houses?”

“Every single one.”

Oliver looked up and down the street
as Sally drove. Plenty of older people were out and about in shorts and shirts
that looked like they were last in style at around the time
Leave it to
Beaver
had been popular. None of them appeared to have a care in the world.
A few even waved as their car passed by. “Who are all these people, then?”
Oliver asked. “They can’t be your security force.”

“No, of course not. Artemis found
them. Most of them are older people who were having money problems and looking
at spending the end of their lives alone and in poverty, or worse. They get a
free place to live in return for not asking questions about the house we’re
heading for. Well, and for being the biggest bunch of busybodies on the planet.
If these people see anything out of the ordinary, no matter how small it is,
the phone in the security office goes nuts. That’s exactly how Artemis wants
it.”

“Was that the security office we just
passed? Handsome Dan? No offense, but he didn’t seem like much.”

“No, that’s just the public face. The
security office is…” Sally pointed at one of the houses. “That one. Those guys
have enough firepower to put a SWAT team to shame.” She pointed at another
house across the street. “And that one isn’t even a house; it’s just a façade.
The front part slides into the ground and there’s an Abrams M1A1 in there.
We’ve got another one on the next block.”

“M1A1? That’s…” Oliver thought about
it. “That’s a tank.”

“Well, they’re not just something we
picked up at a military surplus sale. They’re very good tanks. And just in case
everything else goes to hell, the entire vault is lined with enough explosives
to turn the whole thing into a crater. Artemis and Seven are the only ones that
can detonate it, though.”

“You’re not serious?”

“Do I normally make jokes? There are
five vaults now. Fifty years ago there were six. Some of our predecessors had a
very bad day a while back. I don’t know all the details. They had a dinosaur
egg that hatched or something like that.”

“Wow.”

“I wouldn’t bring it up to Artemis.
She’s still pretty pissed about it.”

Oliver made a mental note to avoid
that subject. He wondered if he’d be able to find the files relating to
that
incident today.

As they reached the last house on the
street Sally entered a code on her phone and its garage door opened. She pulled
the car inside and shut the door behind them. “Come on,” she said, getting out.

A door led from the garage into a
hallway, and from there into the living room. The house looked entirely typical
in every way Oliver could think of. The furnishings were modern, if not
particularly elegant. There were framed family photos on the walls of people
Oliver had never seen before. A television and stereo system filled an
entertainment center set in front of a long couch. Nobody seemed to be home,
though. Oliver said as much to Sally.

“Nobody is ever home,” she replied.
“This one stays empty. Come on.” She opened a set of white French doors that
led into an empty closet. “This way.”

Oliver poked his head into the
closet. “There’s nothing in here.”

Sally put a hand on his back and
gently pushed him inside. “Of course there isn’t. You think we keep everything
in the living room?” She joined him in the closet and pulled the doors shut.
“Now hold still and keep your eyes open.” She cleared her throat. “Identify.”

Oliver heard a faint humming sound in
the darkness that seemed to be coming from all around them. Then a thin
rectangle of light appeared above their heads, lining the four walls of the
closet. For the life of him, Oliver couldn’t tell where the light was coming
from unless it was being generated inside the walls themselves. The light
dropped down to eye level, forcing him to squint just a bit, but he kept his
eyes open. The light then dropped down to their feet, before slowly rising up
the walls again.

“Nice,” Sally said. “You didn’t get
electrocuted.”

“Was that really a possibility?”
Oliver asked.

“Well, you wouldn’t have been
electrocuted to
death
. Just a little bit.”

Oliver heard a series of beeps.
“Sally Rain,” she said. “Alpha access.” Another beep sounded. Sally looked at
Oliver expectantly.

“Um…Oliver Jones.” He looked at Sally
questioningly. “Alpha access?”

The confirmation beep came and then
the closet lit up, the light source still seeming to be the walls themselves.
He heard a grinding as if heavy machinery was stirring into action, and then
the entire closet began to descend.

“It’s an elevator,” Oliver said.

“No, it’s a space ship. Of course
it’s an elevator.”

The elevator closet lowered them for
about five full minutes, leading Oliver to wonder exactly how deep they were
going. It was very difficult to gauge the elevator’s speed with no point of
reference. Could it have been half a mile? How had the vault been created in
the first place? It would have taken months to dig out, and how could that have
been done without anyone knowing? Asking Artemis about it would probably be a
waste of time. It was one more thing he’d have to check those files for. But
then the elevator doors opened revealing the warehouse of Oliver’s dreams, and
he found he didn’t care where it came from anymore.

Vault 3 was easily the size of half a
dozen football fields, with a high ceiling lined with lighting fixtures from
one end to the other. High shelves were arranged in parallel rows with wide
aisles he could have driven a truck through. The whole place looked like a
Costco, but instead of bulk-packaged household items, these shelves held a dizzying
assortment of different objects. Some looked quite ordinary, while others
looked like they might have been thousands of years old, and some looked like
they might have originated on an alien planet. It was just as well that Artemis
didn’t expect him to study the vault in just one day. Cataloging this place
could take weeks, or even longer.

“How many…” Oliver began.

“Who knows? I never spent much time
here,” Sally said. “And most of my first visit was spent hiding from the
security system. That thing doesn’t mess around.”

Oliver looked at her. “This is where
you came through? From your world?”

“Come on, I’ll show you.” She led him
down an aisle packed with what looked like Egyptian artifacts. Each item had a
small plaque with an identification number next to it. “Those are for the
database,” Sally told him when he stopped to read one. “You can look them up in
the computer room. Some of the newer stuff has a touchscreen display with it you
can use to pull it up right there, but there’s just way too much and we don’t
have a guy who maintains the place full-time. There was a guy years ago…”

“Don’t tell me something in here
killed him?”

“No. It was before my time. Artemis
said he just vanished in here one day. Went walking down an aisle and never
came back. She seems to think he’ll show up again, eventually, but I don’t see
how. If you see anyone in here who isn’t us, though, let me know.”

Oliver couldn’t tell if she was
joking, but decided she probably wasn’t. He resolved to keep his eyes open, and
also to keep his hands to himself. He didn’t want to wind up vanishing.

Sally turned a corner and stopped.
The remains of what had once been a tall rectangular mirror with a wooden frame
sat cordoned off with red tape that surrounded it in a circle. The frame had been
bashed into several large pieces and shards of glass surrounded it. “There it
is,” she said.

“You came…
through
this?”

“Yeah. It’s a gateway. Or, it
was
a
gateway.” She knelt down and took one of the shards in her hand. “It’s just
glass now.” She held the shard up so he could get a better look.

Oliver could see part of his eye
reflected in the piece of mirror. “How did it work?”

“You just walked through it and came
out on the other side.” Oliver took a hesitant step backward. “Don’t worry,”
Sally smirked. “It only works if the mirror’s intact. My team found ours in a
bombed-out museum back home. We’d…” she paused, her eyes taking on a faraway
look. “We were caught behind enemy lines and we’d been scavenging, trying to
find anything we could use. At that point I’d have been happy with a few rusty
old swords.” She smiled ruefully. “There wasn’t much in there, but when we
found this mirror…”

“It brought you here.”

“It did. To
this
place,” she
said, waving her hand at the shelves. “And this stuff was
exactly
what
we needed. Except the minute we came through it tripped the security system and
we got pinned down by the turrets. We couldn’t even get back to the mirror to
get away. We were stuck in here, hiding under shelves, until Artemis and her
team showed up.”

Oliver looked around. “I don’t
actually
see
any turrets.”

“You don’t
want
to see the
turrets.” Sally put the mirror shard back down on the ground where she’d found
it. “Artemis wanted me to clean this up, but I’m a little attached to it. It’s
the last piece of home I have, even if it’s only a reflection.”

Oliver nodded. “You must really miss
it.”

“Sometimes,” Sally said. “But it
doesn’t matter anymore. There’s no putting this thing back together.” She stood
up. “The file room and the computers are over there,” she said, pointing at a
set of doors along one of the far walls. “Grab an armful of stuff to read back
at the office. Then you should spend some time looking around and checking
database entries. Artemis is going to expect you to be able to talk about some
of the things you saw here. See if you can impress her.”

“But there’s so much in here…”

“You don’t have to present a
dissertation. Just if, I don’t know, you had to fight an Arcadian wildebeest,
you’d know you could come down here and grab a gamma tetradoxalyzer to handle
it.”

Oliver blinked. “Arcadian…”

Sally laughed. “I made all of that
up,” she said.

“So there are no Arcadian wildebeests
or gamma…” he’d already forgotten the next word.

“I hope not. Then again, who knows?
Take your time. I’m going to poke around a little, too. When you’re done
there’s something I want to show you, if it’s still here.”

“What is it?”