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Part 5-4: Lab
Upon learning that we had such provisions, Fergus helped himself to an armful of beers while Persi and I got cozy on the couch. Ted Nijinsky lived in a townhouse in the downtown district, so my visualization point was a place I’d avoided ever since Willy killed a telephone pole outside of it: Tankies Pub.
I pulled Persi into Clockworld like usual, and kept a firm grip on both her real wrist and her ghost wrist as I pictured the long, thin establishment—DJ booth in the back, thirty-something crowd, a four top that faced the door where two hapless young men once entered, hours away from being dragged into a wild, sanity-frying misadventure.
The living room popped away. Wifi silently sizzled as the weekday after-work crowd chatted and clinked their glasses and silverware.
“You with me?” I asked Persi.
“Here,” she said. “Can you show me the signal trick?”
I supposed I could. I talked her through the notion of diamonds and squares, twisting carefully, and surely annoying those in the place by stuttering their connections.
“I don’t see the shapes,” said Persi. “But you’ve had much more practice. I wish I’d known about it when I was trapped.”
“We’re all learnin’ lady,” I said. “Let’s hustle, Teddy’s pad is a good fifteen from here.”
Like before, Deluxe guided us down the misty, signal-busy streets until we spotted a landmark mailbox. Beyond was the residential broadband barrier. I turned it down and a-sleuthin’ we went.
Inside, we found a mad scientist’s lab.
Deluxe keeps her gadgets and electronics stored neatly and mostly out of our common areas. Her room is a fascinating arrangement of glowing boxes, a huge aquarium and shelves full of computer relics and ostensibly alien hardware. Ted Nijinsky’s condo looked like someone had taken fifteen of Deluxe’s rooms and subjected them to a combination snowblower / wood chipper.
First, the cardboard. Every square inch of the place was covered in shreds of it. Former boxes, I guessed, based on the occasional corner piece or errant strip of packing tape. Next, the wires. Blue, red, green, black, they hung from all conceivable anchor points, draping in erratic patterns like malignant decorative bead-doors.
Computer desktop shells occupied most pieces of furniture, in various states of disassembly. Accompanying them were an array of fat monitors, thin LCD screens, odd blocky displays—most of these machines seemed to be off, but every fifth one or so was awake and whirring. Black and white lines of code flashed across the living screens.
And there were tools of every sort scattered about: wrenches, screwdrivers, pliers, wire cutters, ball hammers, nails, bolts, nuts—you get the picture. Like a hardware store aisle had puked all over everything.
Worst of all, the lights inside all glowed red. Even in grey, charmless Clockworld, stark stoplight red raged out of what bare bulbs weren’t obscured by the lengths of wire. The shadows cast by the deranged decorations zigged and zagged across the uneven cardboard terrain, which confused the eye and made moving a strange chore.
“Alena,” said Persi, “this place worries me.”
I heard muttering and tinkering noises from deeper within.
“I don’t know,” I said, “it’s possible that it’s actually an art exhibit.”
“That seems unlikely.”
“Fair,” I muttered, too disturbed to clarify that I was making a hilarious joke. “Deluxe, the visual on this place is, uhm, extreme. May need you to help identify… everything.”
We picked our way through the wild mess, doing our best to relay what we saw to my roommate. After the front door and vestibule, the place opened into the main living room. From there, I could see a kitchen in one direction and a lengthy hallway in the other, both of which sported the insane decor. The muttering rose and fell in an erratic pitch from down the hall.
“The operating devices, can you trace any physical connections, power or otherwise?” asked Deluxe.
“Not really,” I said. “Totally possible that any live wires are running along the floor. Totally not possible to move this junk and see.”
Well, mused a mischievous thought, possibly possible if I used the new destructo power that The Minder had taken the trouble to teach me. Melt those little cardboard bits away, see what treasures hid beneath. I shivered, because I knew whatever god damn test was ahead would probably require the blue-white-black burn.
“Copy that,” replied Deluxe. “As for your bright red lights, this is mere speculation, but it’s possible you’re sensitive to different wavelengths in the incorporeal state. Such as ultraviolet or infrared. That may also explain why organisms appear to emit light. What does the sun look like within?”
“There is no sun here,” I said, more bitterly than intended.
She was quiet after that, and while I tried to figure out if I needed to apologize, Persi marched forward, heading toward the noises.
“Wait,” I said.
“What is it?”
The answer was that I was creeped out and wanted to procrastinate seeing what the hell was in there. Instead, I said, “Let’s scope the kitchen first, to make sure there are no hidden surprises.”
“Okay. Good idea.”
We scoped. It was similarly weird in there too, but with no evident surprises. I bought myself thirty useless seconds before Persi was again beelining it towards the depths of the madhouse.
It was time to meet the scientist.
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