BLOOMSBURY. LONDON. NOW
Chevie Savano plugged Charles Smart’s Timekey into the weirdly pronged socket on the bank of antique computers in the pod room.
A message appeared on the screen: warming up. Warming up? What was this? A photocopier?
Alt-tech was a term Felix liked to bandy about. Alternative technology. What he meant was old junk that didn’t work properly anymore.
Warming up? The next thing you knew, this contraption would ask for more gas.
Eventually a menu shuddered into life on the small convex screen. The kind of screen nerd grandpas collected to play Pac-Man. The operating system was unfamiliar to her, a set of consecutive menus that reminded her of a family tree.
Well, I guess even Apple and Microsoft can’t control the past, she thought, smiling.
It did seem as though everything was on this Timekey. The entire history of the project, including previous jumps, personnel files, pod locations, and, of course, Professor Smart’s video diary.
Chevie selected the proximity-alert recordings with an honest-to-God wooden mouse, and scrolled through to the last couple of minutes.
It was a grainy picture, colors muted by the darkness, but she could clearly see the boy Riley approach stealthily, eyes and teeth shining out of his blackened face. The blade in his hand was visible too, just the top edge where the soot failed to cover it.
Suddenly the screen glowed green, and Riley’s features were underlit like a Halloween campfire storyteller. The boy looked pretty guilty, it had to be said: sneaking into an old man’s house in the dead of night, armed with a wicked-looking blade. The alert changed from green to red as Riley drew closer, and the view flipped as Professor Smart sat up.
There was a little chitchat, which was impossible to make out, then Riley struck and everything went orange. End of story. QED, the check’s in the mail, the prosecution rests.
Or does it?
Chevie freeze-framed the moment when Riley lunged. It seemed a little weird. Chevie knew all about knife fights, and the boy’s stance seemed off to her. He was leaning backward while moving forward. This was not an easy thing to do. Also, the look on his face was pure horror.
Either this kid is schizophrenic, or he had a little help.
But there was no one else in the dark room. No one that she could see, at any rate.
Chevie was tempted to pound the ancient hardware.
Alt-tech, my butt. I can’t even clean up the image a little.
Then Chevie had an idea: maybe she couldn’t clean up the image on this box of bolts, but if she could transfer it . . .
Chevie pulled her smartphone from her waistband and took an HD shot of the screen. Simply transferring the image to her phone seemed to sharpen it up a bit, but it was still dark and fuzzy.
Dark and fuzzy, not a problem.
Chevie had no fewer than four photo manipulation apps on her phone, and she selected one to run the picture through.
In a way it was therapeutic to have such a mundane task to perform, which could momentarily help her to pretend she was working on a normal case.
She ordered the phone to sharpen, lighten, and boost color.
It took a few seconds, then another person appeared from the shadows, behind Riley to the right. A tall man, slightly bent, with dark, close-set eyes that were devoid of expression, like those of a corpse. The face was bland, made more so by the soot smeared across his features, and Chevie couldn’t imagine ladies ever swooning before this guy, but the eyes gave him away. Chevie had seen those dead eyes before, on the faces of serial killers in the Quantico files.
Chevie shivered.
So that’s what it feels like when your blood runs cold, she thought. I’ve heard the expression but never understood it.
This was the man Riley had spoken of, no doubt about it. Death, the magician. This guy looked capable of anything.
Yet it was Riley holding the knife. The boy was still guilty.
But . . .
Chevie double-tapped the image to enlarge it, then
Chevie Savano plugged Charles Smart’s Timekey into the weirdly pronged socket on the bank of antique computers in the pod room.
A message appeared on the screen: warming up. Warming up? What was this? A photocopier?
Alt-tech was a term Felix liked to bandy about. Alternative technology. What he meant was old junk that didn’t work properly anymore.
Warming up? The next thing you knew, this contraption would ask for more gas.
Eventually a menu shuddered into life on the small convex screen. The kind of screen nerd grandpas collected to play Pac-Man. The operating system was unfamiliar to her, a set of consecutive menus that reminded her of a family tree.
Well, I guess even Apple and Microsoft can’t control the past, she thought, smiling.
It did seem as though everything was on this Timekey. The entire history of the project, including previous jumps, personnel files, pod locations, and, of course, Professor Smart’s video diary.
Chevie selected the proximity-alert recordings with an honest-to-God wooden mouse, and scrolled through to the last couple of minutes.
It was a grainy picture, colors muted by the darkness, but she could clearly see the boy Riley approach stealthily, eyes and teeth shining out of his blackened face. The blade in his hand was visible too, just the top edge where the soot failed to cover it.
Suddenly the screen glowed green, and Riley’s features were underlit like a Halloween campfire storyteller. The boy looked pretty guilty, it had to be said: sneaking into an old man’s house in the dead of night, armed with a wicked-looking blade. The alert changed from green to red as Riley drew closer, and the view flipped as Professor Smart sat up.
There was a little chitchat, which was impossible to make out, then Riley struck and everything went orange. End of story. QED, the check’s in the mail, the prosecution rests.
Or does it?
Chevie freeze-framed the moment when Riley lunged. It seemed a little weird. Chevie knew all about knife fights, and the boy’s stance seemed off to her. He was leaning backward while moving forward. This was not an easy thing to do. Also, the look on his face was pure horror.
Either this kid is schizophrenic, or he had a little help.
But there was no one else in the dark room. No one that she could see, at any rate.
Chevie was tempted to pound the ancient hardware.
Alt-tech, my butt. I can’t even clean up the image a little.
Then Chevie had an idea: maybe she couldn’t clean up the image on this box of bolts, but if she could transfer it . . .
Chevie pulled her smartphone from her waistband and took an HD shot of the screen. Simply transferring the image to her phone seemed to sharpen it up a bit, but it was still dark and fuzzy.
Dark and fuzzy, not a problem.
Chevie had no fewer than four photo manipulation apps on her phone, and she selected one to run the picture through.
In a way it was therapeutic to have such a mundane task to perform, which could momentarily help her to pretend she was working on a normal case.
She ordered the phone to sharpen, lighten, and boost color.
It took a few seconds, then another person appeared from the shadows, behind Riley to the right. A tall man, slightly bent, with dark, close-set eyes that were devoid of expression, like those of a corpse. The face was bland, made more so by the soot smeared across his features, and Chevie couldn’t imagine ladies ever swooning before this guy, but the eyes gave him away. Chevie had seen those dead eyes before, on the faces of serial killers in the Quantico files.
Chevie shivered.
So that’s what it feels like when your blood runs cold, she thought. I’ve heard the expression but never understood it.
This was the man Riley had spoken of, no doubt about it. Death, the magician. This guy looked capable of anything.
Yet it was Riley holding the knife. The boy was still guilty.
But . . .
Chevie double-tapped the image to enlarge it, then
Similar Books
