Deadly Designs Read online

  Mentally, she tapped into the stylus. Can you feel me, Stylus?

  Nothing.

  Damn. She snatched up the metal zipper pull and asked the question, this time she had her hand on the wall as it jerked with the answer. Yes.

  Thank God for that. “Are you close to me?”

  Yes.

  And what did close mean? “Stylus, can you tell me the distance that’s between us?”

  Ten.

  Ten what? Again, she had no idea of what measurements were used by Torans or Louers.

  “Ten feet?” she asked cautiously.

  Ten nacrons.

  Shit.

  “How long is a nacron?”

  One nacron is ten sedents.

  Double shit. Storey banged her forehead on the wall in front of her. Figures.

  “Stylus, are there any Louers with you?”

  No.

  That was a relief.

  “Are you contained in some way?”

  Silence.

  Stupid question, Storey. “Can you give me directions to find you?”

  Follow the connection.

  Connection? The buzz? Of course. That was how she’d made it this far, after all. She turned so her back pressed against the wall and closed her eyes. Where was the buzz coming from? The right. Great. That was the wall. No metal discs in sight.

  “Stylus, I think you are behind the wall in front of me, but I can’t see a way to get in.”

  Door.

  “Yeah. That would be helpful.” She thought hard. “Do they all have metal discs to show you how to open them?”

  No.

  Crap.

  Backing up several steps, she took another look at the end wall. It made sense that there would be a way to open it, but how? The wall itself was about the length of her bedroom. And didn’t that thought bring a pang to her heart? She missed her mom. That surprised her. But right now, a cup of tea with her mother sounded like the best gift ever.

  Until she remembered that the last time she’d seen her mother, her father had been there, too. The same father she hadn’t seen in a decade.

  She shuddered. What a mess she had to clean up when she got home.

  One mess at a time.

  That meant getting out of here.

  And that meant getting through the damn wall standing between her and her stylus.

  Shit.

  Taking several steps back, she ran, shoulder down, straight at the wall.

  *

  Eric slipped out of the closet and studied Storey’s bedroom. Surely if she’d been back there’d be a sign. Like her backpack, sketchbook or even her shoes could be here. Something would have been disturbed. The trouble was he couldn’t tell.

  From what he could see, she hadn’t made it back to her home dimension. That matched the stylus’s words and her parents’ conversation. That left two more dimensions that he was aware of, both potentially full of the enemy.

  Not good. He was very much afraid Storey was in the new dimension she’d created.

  And if so, that could be a huge problem.

  With a final look at her room, he set his codex for home and sent himself back to Paxton’s lab.

  Paxton waited for him as the mist dissipated. “Well,” he asked impatiently, “Did she make it there?”

  “No. I need to go to the new dimension. Make sure she hasn’t somehow gotten into that one.”

  “Absolutely not. We can’t have any energy moving between that dimension and ours. You know as well as I do that the more we travel the more the energy instinctively aligns into a pathway. If we go over there, the Louers could eventually find their way back here.”

  “If Storey is over there, we have to get her back.”

  “Go ask your father if he knows anything about her whereabouts.”

  Eric frowned at his mentor. “He’s not likely to tell me, you know that.” Paxton refused to meet his gaze. “You think she might be dead or at least dying, don’t you?”

  “It’s a distinct possibility. Now hurry.”

  Eric strode down the long white hallway. It had taken Storey’s comment about the white being everywhere to make him realize how odd his world must look to her. Her dimension swelled with color and chaos. Peace and quiet were hard to find, but the place buzzed with activity. At home, calm ruled and the most excitement on a normal day was watching the sun go down. Nothing ever happened – until Storey had popped in. She’d brought some of the same chaos and color to his world, too. He enjoyed the energy and he really missed the chaos.

  Stupid.

  He missed her even more.

  His father’s chambers lay at the end of the hall. As Councilman, his chambers were the largest and richest of any here. He was big on appearances. Not so big on sharing.

  At a white door that looked the same as every other apartment on this floor, Eric took a deep breath, thought of Storey caught in a nightmare dimension, possibly dying, and knocked on his father’s door. Hard.

  The door opened under his hand. Eric entered expecting to see his father holding court with the other council members. The room was silent – and empty.

  Eric frowned. “Father. Are you home?”

  “Father?”

  No answer.

  He called out again, moving cautiously into the open space. The room appeared to be undisturbed. But if he wasn’t here, then where was he? His father only frequented a few places. Council Chambers, his apartment and Paxton’s lab. The only other place would be the private dining room. But at this hour of the morning? Not likely.

  His father was a creature of habit.

  So where was he?

  *

  Storey hit the wall and bounced off. Duh. Rubbing her sore shoulder she glowered at the dirt wall. “This is ridiculous. Why doesn’t anything work properly around here?”

  She walked back and forth along the wall with her hand scraping the surface, looking for some kind of crack or door; any weakness would be a good start. There had to be some way to get past this barrier. And fast. Shit.

  At the far end she turned to look back along the wall. Nothing had changed.

  “Open sesame?” Stupid, she knew it was stupid, but she was willing to try anything. Nothing happened. Of course not. Still, she had to try. “Door open?”

  “Please open the door?”

  Nothing happened.

  Like who said the Louers even spoke English. For all she knew they had a very different language. Not that having another dialect would make any sense, considering the Toran people spoke a basic form of English. They had some words she’d never heard of. Still, it was close enough to hers to be understandable. Unlike their portal technology. That’s what she really wanted to take home. Like that will ever happen. Still, imagine being able to go to California for a swim and Hong Kong for a shopping trip and then ending up in Paris for dinner. Travel by codex was fast and simple. It was also green technology. At least she thought it was. It would eliminate the need for planes, trains, cars even. The air would be almost pollution free. So much nicer than walking along the street with all the car exhaust she had to breathe in now.

  Well not right now. Right now she was in the Louers’ dimension. At least she thought she was. Then she could possibly be underground in the new dimension, too.

  Let’s face it. I have no clue where I am.

  “Enough, already. Door open.”

  A grinding sound filled the area. The wall in front of her slid to the side. She pivoted, crouching low only to see she was still alone. Then she slipped into the room and stopped just inside the doorway. Was it the tone of voice that mattered here? Odd, considering she’d heard no sounds here. In fact, the silence was starting to bug her.

  “Lights on.”

  Instantly the same lighting system turned on, giving a low yellowish light over what appeared to be another empty room. “Crap. I like peace and quiet as much as the next person, but all the time? No. Are there any Torans here? Anything but Louers?” Silence was her only answer. Goo
d thing, too, otherwise she’d have had a heart attack. “Stylus, are you in here?”

  She didn’t have her zipper tab in her hand. Damn. Digging deep, she scrounged around in her pockets until she found it. From what she could see, there was nothing in this room. Turning to the closest wall, she repeated the question, her hand ready to write the answer.

  Only there was no answer.

  Shit.

  “Stylus? Stylus, talk to me.”

  No answer.

  Double shit. It had been here a minute ago. She knew that. Had felt that deep connection, so close, and now it was gone. Where and how?

  Closing her eyes, she called out as strongly as she could on a mental level.

  No response.

  Somehow, within the last five minutes, she’d lost her connection to the stylus. Why? Her heart raced. She walked the perimeter of the room looking for anything that would show storage, another door, Louers…something to explain how her stylus could have gone missing.

  And came up empty.

  “Stylus, do you have a power source that has run out? Like a battery or something?”

  No answer.

  Fear crept down her spine. All alone was one thing, all alone without the stylus was a whole different problem. Up until the last couple of minutes, she’d thought she was close to holding it again in her grasp.

  Now what?

  *

  Eric stood in the middle of his father’s chambers. Where was his father? Searching as he walked, Eric returned to Paxton. “My father isn’t there. I can’t find him anywhere.”

  Paxton lifted his head, concern clouding his eyes. “He can’t be far. Everyone is still on alert. Just because the war is over doesn’t mean the danger is.”

  Eric shrugged. “I couldn’t find him. Ask your stylus.”

  Paxton frowned. “We can’t be bothering it for every little thing. Walk the building and find him. He’s probably in the dining room.”

  Studying his codex, Eric typed in a series of numbers to see if he could track his father. “I don’t know. This doesn’t feel right.”

  “Why?”

  “The codex isn’t picking up his wrist unit.”

  “I believe he has the broken one, remember? I tried to fix it, but he wanted it back before I completed the job.” Paxton looked at the charts and papers covering his desk. Grabbing a blank page, he picked up his stylus. “Stylus, where is the Councilman?”

  His hand jerked as the message came through. Gone.

  “What does that mean?” Eric stared at the paper. “Gone where?”

  “Stylus, has the Councilman left the building?”

  Yes.

  “There’s no way. He almost never leaves. Ever.” Eric glanced at Paxton, his uncertainty mirrored in his mentor’s gaze.

  Paxton shook his head. “That’s not true. The Councilman prefers to stay inside, but he does leave when he has to.”

  “So where is he then?”

  Turning back to the stylus, Paxton wrote, “Stylus, can you tell us where he has gone?”

  No.

  Paxton frowned. “No, you can’t tell us or no, you can’t tell us where he’s gone?”

  I don’t know.

  Both Paxton and Eric stared at each other in confusion. “I don’t understand. Has something changed that you aren’t getting the information you need?”

  “Is it broken?” Eric figured to clear the air right away.

  “No, at least I don’t think so. Stylus, are you broken?”

  No. Cloudy. Injured.

  Paxton immediately laid it on top of the paper. “See, we probably overused it.”

  “No way. We have to figure out what’s wrong. For all you know this is related to Storey’s stylus. Maybe hers has been broken. They are all connected remember.”

  “I remember,” he answered testily. “That’s still a big assumption.”

  Eric tried to be patient. “I’m not assuming anything. I’m asking you to pick it up again and get more answers.”

  Paxton waffled then relented. He reached out for his stylus hesitantly. “I don’t want to hurt it.”

  “Then ask it if you are doing anything to hurt it.”

  Paxton asked the question and his shoulders sagged with relief when the answer came back ‘no.’

  “Now find out who’s been injured,” Eric urged.

  The ensuing conversation blew him away. He’d been right. Something had happened to Storey’s stylus and it had gone into sleep mode. Leaving her alone and probably in the Louers’ dimension.

  “Sleep mode?”

  We turn off and hibernate after a long period of inactivity…or if someone happens to pick us up that we feel we are better off to hibernate from.

  Eric didn’t like the sound of that. “Can it tell if something happened to Storey?”

  The answer came back negative. But that could mean it didn’t know.

  Shit. “I have to go find her. And her stylus apparently.”

  “I don’t have a good feeling about this,” Paxton said.

  Eric’s stomach twisted in agreement. “While I’m looking for Storey, maybe you can find my father.”

  Walking past Paxton’s work desk, Eric snatched up a second codex for Storey, just in case. Last time he’d been in that horrible place, they hadn’t had enough traveling power for everyone and that shortage had sent them into the newly created fourth dimension. Back then it had been empty. Now…it could be full of Louers. Securing the new codex to his right arm, he used the codes he’d thought to never repeat. The one difficult thing about codex travel, it needed coordinates. He’d only been in one place in that horrible land – a prison. Therefore, that’s the only place he could return to.

  As blackness swirled up around his body, he sent out a silent hope that he’d make it through this trip fine.

  The last thing he wanted was to end up a prisoner – again.

  Chapter 5

  Storey prided herself on staying calm and rational in difficult circumstances. She’d learned a lot through the skirmishes in Eric’s dimension and knew she needed to control the panic crouching on the edge of her mind. The bottom line to her situation is she had to find her stylus. It had been elemental to every successful thing she’d done so far.

  Why had it stopped communicating? Did it have batteries to run dry? Or, as it was bound to her, maybe it needed to spend time with her to recharge. With a few short steps, she returned to the wall she’d tried to bust through. She’d been so sure the stylus had been on the other side, and that’s the last sensation she’d had of it, then it had stopped.

  Cracks went up and down. Cupboards?

  Could it be?

  Quickly she searched for some way to open them. “Cupboards open.” Nothing. Crap, this again. “Storage open. Door open. Wall open?”

  Nothing.

  She pounded along the crack, hoping it might have a release lever. Again nothing. The longer she stared at the wall the more she could make out the vertical lines that had to be there for a reason.

  It had to be a cupboard of some kind. Organized cracks filled the wall like the outline of a puzzle. It’s like she looked at the backside of a storage unit.

  That couldn’t be right. On the other side she’d run her hand along the entire wall and there’d been no cracks or breaks at all. So between that wall and here, there had to be storage. And her stylus was in there. And if it was in there, someone had put it there. Now if only she knew who and how. Damn it.

  With a heavy sigh, she reached up a hand and massaged her neck. Everything was starting to ache. And her stomach was growling from lack of food. Another growing problem. Food. And water. Damn, she shouldn’t have thought of that, now her mouth was dry and all she could think of was cold, clear water. She closed her eyes and tried to focus. Stylus? Please, are you there? I need to find you.

  Again, she heard nothing.

  But…but what? A faint buzz, so faint she could almost persuade herself she’d imagined it. There it was again. Wi
th an ear cocked to one side, she walked toward the noise. It was coming from the corner of the wall. Reaching out, she touched the spot gently. Then harder. Snick. The cupboard in front of her opened up. She backed away. It didn’t snap open or open by much, but it was as if some interior connection had released and there was now a big enough crack to pull the door toward her. She opened it, expecting to see shelves. Instead, a space, too big for the area she’d thought had been available for the cupboard stood in front of her. Big enough she could walk inside. And that thought made her stomach cringe. Because not only could she not find her stylus lying on the dirt floor of this cupboard, she also couldn’t see a back to the cupboard. There wasn’t one.

  Because this wasn’t a cupboard, but a doorway.

  *

  Eric coughed, gasped, then coughed again. The smell.

  His eyes streamed and his chest burned. How could the Louers live with this stench? He coughed and coughed, almost retching as his system struggled to adapt. Bending over, he gave himself another long moment to adjust. The crossing had been easy enough, but the arrival had been tough.

  Standing slowly, he searched the area around him. The darkness held a dense, cloying odor. He squinted. It appeared to be the same room he’d been in last time. It also appeared to be empty.

  Relaxing slightly, he rolled his head and scrunched his shoulders slightly to ease up the tension in his back. He did a quick walk of the perimeter of the large room. No lights, no door, nothing. How did that work?

  The Louers’ technology had diversified from those of his own people centuries ago, so even though he might know some of their methods to make daily living work, chances are he wouldn’t understand all of it. His father and Paxton assumed that the Louers had become even more primitive after they’d been banished to this hell, but he wasn’t so sure. The two men held the same opinion of Storey and her people, and look at what she’d managed to do. If the Louers had developed half as well as the humans, they could have some pretty amazing technology.

  The Louers he’d seen on his dimension had been brutish in looks, but they had been incredibly strong. They’d also crossed the veil and devised a strategy to try and take over his world. That they hadn’t succeeded was due mostly to Storey and they couldn’t have known to account for her in their plans. Who could have?