A Chronetic Perspective (The Chronography Records Book 2) Read online

  She threw up her hands, shaking her head. What could she say to that? So they rode in silence for a while. Then Dani said, “Okay, so what happened to the sun after all that?”

  “The fox got fire from it and let it go free. What, you think they’d keep it? All they wanted was the fire.”

  “If that’s the moon’s body, why is there a moon in the sky?”

  “What moon? I don’t see a moon in the sky. Do you?” He tilted his head this way and that, pretending to search for it.

  “Silly.” She pulled his cap down over his eyes. Couldn’t cover up that grin, though.

  With a loud beep, the autopilot disengaged. Lexil pushed his cap back, took over the controls, and guided the helicar closer to the mountain, easing toward a home with a two-story viewglass front. At least, she assumed it was viewglass. It could just be regular plastiglass. She supposed that with an everyday view like what she saw around her, a choice of scenery wouldn’t be all that important. And stuck up on a mountain like this, privacy was the norm, rather than the exception.

  They landed on the helicar pad. Lexil gathered their equipment bags, and then they made their way to the front entrance. When he took out a passkey, Dani realized they were here on official police business. RIACH didn’t have any passkeys to hand out. This would be an evidence-gathering trip. Something they found here today might help to solve a crime. As he provided the necessary details to let them bypass the irisscan, she looked around.

  The home was built on a small ledge, with just enough room for the imposing house—much bigger than it looked from the air—and a small yard. It was landscaped in moss and shrubs. She recognized a mountain laurel and some late-blooming rhododendrons. She caught glimpses of a grid installed below the moss, which would keep it from being slippery in wet weather. Wouldn’t help much in an earthquake or a mudslide, though. She caught herself glancing upward at the roof-like mudshield. Did those things really work? Her mind told her it was also anchored deep in the mountain, that its shape was engineered to guide hundreds of tons of sliding earth into the channels on either side of the peaked roof. Still, it had rained recently. A wall of dirt could absorb a foot or more of rain, look completely solid, and then suddenly liquefy and carry everything in its path to the valley floor below.

  The door whooshed open, revealing more evidence of wealth. A faux-marble nanofloor made Dani’s feet tingle right through her flexshoes as she stepped on it. She had heard of these, tiny pulses of nanobots that evaporated excess moisture. They also ionized dirt and dust and sucked them through the porous surface to be channeled to the outdoors. She stepped off the floor onto the synthetic carpet and turned toward Lexil.

  “I’ve never stepped on one of these before. Have you?”

  He shook his head. “They’re expensive. You’d have to be obsessed with cleanliness to be willing to spend that kind of money, I’ve always thought.”

  He put the bags on the floor and reached inside.

  “So what are we here for, exactly?” she asked.

  “Police business,” he said, handing her a pair of gloves and a handscanner. “They’ve been here already, of course. Scoured the place for prints, DNA, last images on the viewglass. They just want us to look for any objects that might have chronetic value.”

  That meant metal was best. Gloves on, Dani picked up a molded sculpture from an end table and examined it. An abstract? If it was supposed to represent something, it was too obscure for her to figure out. Her scanner told her it was made of synthetic materials. She put it back down, noticing as she did that there was no dust ring where it had stood. Either the owner hadn’t been gone long or the air was really clean. “Who lives here? Might he come back while we’re looking through his things?”

  “The man who owns this place, Drummond Morgan—yeah, I figured you’d recognize the name—is something of a recluse,” Lexil said. “Normally, he’d be home almost all the time. He’s missing, though. That’s why the police are involved.”

  Drummond Morgan. Of course she recognized the name. The man had made a fortune when his start-up company developed slidewalk tiles back in the mid-90s. His son, Wade, was being groomed to take over the company when he died in a freak accident. Dani was fifteen at the time. She vaguely remembered the news streams playing across the viewwall when her mom or dad tuned in at night. Pictures of Wade, laughing with his family, ending a business presentation (to enthusiastic applause), taking part in the wave skimming race that ended his life. Her dad switched to something else whenever the accident was mentioned, but that was understandable, given the circumstances.

  The rest of the details were fuzzy. Celebrity news lasted only until the next celebrity made the headlines. And it hadn’t been too long after that time that her personal world fell apart.

  She shook her head. What had it been—almost eight years? Plenty of time to get over her dad’s middle-of-the-night departure. It had torn her up at the time, but one look at her mother’s face stopped her protests in her throat, unspoken. Whatever his reasons, they were unassailable. And that was the last time she had heard from him.

  She scanned the walls for any nails or hooks that might be exposed. Nothing. Lexil was in the dining area, doing the same.

  “That was really a sad thing when his son died,” she said, mostly to fill the silence.

  Lexil nodded. “It was devastating for Morgan. He adored his son, built all his plans around him. After the accident, he lost interest in the company, started accusing people of causing the malfunction. Went bonkers, from some accounts. Wouldn’t be consoled. I guess his wife, Colleen, hung around for a few months—a year, maybe—then she gave up and took their daughter, Althea, with her. Went to Australia.”

  That was a lot more than she’d heard on the news. She poked her head around the corner. “Did you know them?”

  He shook his head and held up his worktablet. “I read the file this morning when I picked up the assignment.”

  She headed toward the living area. She still wasn’t convinced. Her worry had grown, now that she knew whose house they were in. “What if he does come back while we’re looking through his stuff? He sounds a little crazy.”

  “He is, but he won’t. He left his helicar parked on the fourth floor of a parking garage in North Bend five days ago, with parking paid for only two hours. The police have it. Without his helicar, how could he get here? I don’t think he’ll be climbing.”

  “A rental?” Dani wanted to be sure.

  Lexil shook his head. “All the rental agencies and taxi services are on the alert for anyone matching his description. We’d hear about it.”

  That was reassuring. “Then I’ll take the other rooms on this floor. Do we need both audio and video?”

  “Anything we can get. But still pictures probably won’t tell us anything.”

  So. Mineral would work too, although metal would be best, of course. No synthetics, no organics. And preferably not something tucked away in a closet. Here in the kitchen, something might have been on the counter recently, but it was all cleaned up and put away now. There was no way of knowing what might have been out.

  Dani usually appreciated neat housekeeping, but she’d have loved to find a pan or spoon left out—anything that might have caught impressions from Drummond’s last hours in the house. It shouldn’t be too long before they found something, though.

  The first researchers in the field of chronography had been puzzled when some objects yielded better results than others did. Synthetic materials gave nothing. Materials that were once part of something living gave them still images, which could be strung together to simulate motion, but no audio components. Objects made of clay, glass, quartz, and other minerals, if large enough, could be used to stream audio and video to an observer through a neurological link. Metal was the best of all, a prime source. Tuned in to the right moment, an investigator could smell the lingering aroma of perfume or the scent of fresh blood, besides the audio and visual elements.

  As she look
ed around the kitchen, deciding where to start, Dani heard Lexil going upstairs. Ironic, that the owner of the slidewalk patent had no slidewalk on his stairs. She had already noticed that the floor, walls, and windows were synthetic. She held up her handscanner to start on the lighting fixtures.

  She tapped her temple to bring up a music selection on her eyescreen. After she got done in the kitchen, she’d check the fine art and light sources on the walls in the main room.

  A half hour later, she had scanned the last exposed surface in all the rooms on the first floor. All the pipes, faucets, knobs, and handles were synthetic. The cabinets were made of wood, the countertops of hard plastic. The pots and pans were silicone.

  She’d heard of privacy extremists. Was Drummond one of those?

  She sighed and stretched. She hoped Lexil was having more success in the rooms upstairs.

  She went back to the main room. If they were going to have to settle for audio, perhaps she could find some metal hardware in the frames of the sofa and chairs there.

  As she leaned over to scan the legs of the sofa, the floor shuddered beneath her feet and began to move.

  Dani was almost on her knees already, and the motion of the floor was enough to knock her over. She went with it, flattening herself even more. If this was an earthquake, she wanted to be as low to the floor as possible, even if that floor happened to be six hundred meters above sea level. She huddled against the couch and was thankful to see that it was firmly anchored at the base.

  Dani had been in an earthquake once before, as a little girl. She remembered thinking then that it was fun, riding the front porch like a surfboard. But it didn’t seem fun now, not with several billion tons of wet earth above her. She tried to call out for Lexil, but her voice was just a squeak.

  The floor stopped moving with a jolt.

  “Dani?” Lexil’s voice, from upstairs.

  “Down here.” She straightened up and peered over the top of the couch. Nothing was moving any more. Everything was back to normal, except for a gaping hole in the floor.

  A perfectly square hole.

  Her brain cleared as she recognized what had happened.

  “What are you laughing about?” Lexil asked, coming down the stairs.

  “Did you, by chance, touch a switch up there?”

  “Yeah. I wasn’t finding anything, and I wanted to take a look at the helicar garage under the house.” He gestured toward the square hole and the steps leading down to the lower level. “Are you all right? You look pale. And why are you on your knees?”

  “The whole floor moved. It was…unexpected. I was imagining imminent mudslides.”

  His mouth twitched. She could tell he was trying not to laugh. She put her hand on the floor to stand up.

  And snatched it back. What had she just touched?

  Behind the couch, Dani bent down again to look. There was a brass button on the floor, like the kind you’d find on a trench coat.

  “Lexil! There’s a button back here, and it feels like metal.”

  CHAPTER THREE

  Captivity

  COTTAGE #5, Blake Island, WA. 0750, Friday, September 8, 2215.

  Consciousness came gradually. The low hum intruded first, weaving its way in and out of his dream world, with a place in both. Muted colors flickered in a dream, or maybe on his eyescreen, but he couldn’t remember requesting any images. The effort of trying to dredge up memories brought him closer to awareness, but it was slow, like being underwater and clawing his way up to the surface.

  He took a deep breath. Good. He heard that. What else? He was lying on his side, no pillow. His left shoulder and hip told him it was a hard surface, and he’d been in the same position for some time. He opened his eyes, but it made little difference, even after blinking several times. Dark. It might be nighttime or he might be in a windowless room. He felt pressure along the sides of his nose and on his eyebrows and amended his guess: He might be blindfolded.

  Could he sit up? His fifty-seven-year-old joints weren’t as useful as they had once been for rising smoothly, especially when his legs were numb. He might have to get on his hands and knees and work his way up from there.

  But that’s where he had to stop. His wrists were taped securely behind him, and he realized, once he tried to move them, that his ankles were bound together too. Yep. Now I’m awake.

  How long had he lain here? His mouth felt dry, as if he hadn’t had anything to drink for hours, maybe a whole day. But he wasn’t thirsty. He might be hungry, though.

  His stomach growled at the thought of food.

  He cast back through memories, trying to find something that might yield a clue about what had happened to him.

  He vaguely remembered being approached by another man in a parking garage, smiling, asking him if he could kindly assist him by lifting something into the back of his vehicle. As they walked the length of the lane and moved to the side of the helicar, the other man grabbed his wrist and twisted it up behind his back so quickly that he didn’t even have time to defend himself.

  And then there was a scent. Some kind of gas, he thought. And that was it.

  Until he woke up here.

  So where was this? If only he could see something, hear something. Perhaps if he reached out with his feet he could find a wall or a piece of furniture that he could push against to get into a more upright position. Perhaps he could rub the blindfold up enough to see beneath it, see whether it was dark or light.

  As he reached out tentatively with his toes, first straightening his knees to the left, and then making a broad sweep downward and to the right, he felt nothing, but he heard a tiny cough.

  And froze. He was not alone.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  Confidentiality

  RIACH LABORATORIES, Alki Beach, Seattle, WA. 1045, Friday, September 8, 2215.

  The irisscan at the entrance gate was quick, and by the time Dani and Lexil had walked the thirty-five meters to the main entrance, the heavy iron doors of the institute were already swinging open to welcome them.

  Dani went through first. Then she turned back. “Where do you think that button came from? We looked all over that room when we first got there.”

  He shook his head. “I don’t know. Unless it was under the couch and it slid out when the floor stopped.”

  She reached into her bag for her white lab coat. “There wasn’t much space under the couch. We’re not going to be able to see anything. But at least the audio should be clear. Do you want me to set it up in a scanner?”

  “Sure, if you want.” Lexil shrugged into his lab coat, leaving it charmingly awry. “I’ll check in with the research team, and then I’ll join you. I want to see if they’ve made any progress on analyzing those waveforms.”

  “You’re pretty sure they’re not just random noise?” She resisted the urge to straighten his collar. That would be a little too personal.

  “There you go again, doubting my brilliance.” He grinned.

  They had only gone a few steps when a blinking “message waiting” icon showed up on Dani’s eyescreen. She tilted her head and tapped her temple to retrieve it, and noticed Lexil doing the same.

  In a soothing, pleasant tone, the male announcer voice came through Dani’s Nexus connexion. “You have a visitor in the lobby waiting area.” She blinked and held to acknowledge receipt. Immediately, another message: “Meeting with Detective Rayes at 1100 in Meeting Room B.” Okay. She hoped the visitor, whoever it was, would be quick.

  “Uh, so, we might have to wait on the scanner. I’ve got a thing. Actually, two.”

  Lexil nodded. “Meeting with Detective Rayes and what else?”

  “A visitor. I’ll let you know who as soon as I find out.”

  He nodded.

  Her puzzlement turned to delight as she entered the lobby.

  “Dani!” A seven-year-old boy leapt to his feet and barreled into her, giving her an enthusiastic hug.

  She took a step backward to brace herself, gave him a quic
k squeeze, and then extricated herself as well as she could—all but her left arm, which he continued to hug. Laughing, she looked up at his father.

  Marak Wallace returned her smile, but it faded quickly. She was concerned to see dark circles under his eyes.

  “You don’t look your usual perky self today. Rough night?”

  He avoided her gaze. “Yeah, just tired, I guess. But hey, Jored wanted to come hang out with you at the lab, and I knew Kat used to bring him, so….” He shrugged.

  “We’d love to have him.” She smiled at the boy, who was shifting back and forth from foot to foot, letting just the hint of a suppressed wiggle escape. “It’s been days since Kat brought him by.”

  “Almost three weeks.”

  Had it really been that long? Dani felt a pang of guilt. She’d been spending a lot of her free time with Lexil. Kat was her best friend, but she hadn’t even called her in all that time. The last time they talked, it was just to cancel a lunch date. What had she said? Something about a “family thing.”

  She looked up at Marak and finally caught his gaze. “Where’s Kat today?”

  “Visiting her uncle.” He hesitated then added, “Several times a week.”

  “Uncle Royce?” A cold shiver crawled down her spine and settled into heaviness in her stomach. “I thought he wasn’t even willing to talk to her.”

  “He’s willing now.” His tone was light, but his eyes were pure steel.

  “What’s wrong, Dad?” Jored tugged on his sleeve. “Is Mom okay? Can we go visit Uncle Royce too? I want to go on his boat.” He made steering motions with his hands.

  Marak laid his hand on the boy’s head. “She’s fine, Son. And unfortunately, Uncle Royce is…away. Why don’t we head to the lab and see what they’re up to?”

  That was enough to turn Jored’s attention, but Dani could tell that things weren’t fine. Not at all.

  In the Special Projects lab, they found Lexil and four other scientists huddled around a table. Together, they formed the best team Dani had ever worked with. She swept the group with her eyes. Patyl Bajwa, brilliant analyst, recently back from a trip home to visit his aging parents. Abrupt in manner, he was slow to make friends, but absolutely loyal once you won his trust. Chali Chung, just a few years older than Patyl, was the one who headed the group when Lexil was gone.