Chasing Ghosts (23 page)

Dagger moved quickly to another door at the
far wall and cracked it open. There was a wide corridor leading to
other offices. It appeared the exterior buildings were just a false
facade to the large office complex within. He turned his head to
listen for sounds in the outer offices. It was silent. He returned
to the window. The park was empty.

Dagger felt dizzy and wondered if the depth
he had descended was screwing up his head. Maybe he needed to eat.
He closed the window blinds partway then settled behind the desk.
He pulled out one of the protein bars and a bottle of water from
the tote bag. While he ate, he rummaged through the desk drawers. A
stained paper bag was in the bottom of the drawer. He carefully
lifted it and peered inside. Someone had left a lunch to mold and
petrify. The top drawer held the typical office paraphernalia of
paper clips, staples, pens. There wasn’t a clock or calendar in the
room.

Furniture was wood and chrome or a metal of
some type. A couch against the side wall was leather and looked
inviting. He dropped the gym bag on the floor, stretched out on the
couch, and told himself he would just rest for a few minutes.

The gray hawk settled on top of a utility
pole. Across the street was the silver Chevy. The hawk had scanned
the area enclosed by fencing after locating the car. So far its
visual acuity had not detected any human movement.

Unsure if there were cameras around, the hawk
wasn’t about to take any chances. It flew across the street to
another building and through an open window where it quickly
shifted to the wolf. The wolf immediately picked up Dagger’s scent.
He had been in this building. It followed the scent down the stairs
and out the back door. The wolf paused at the bottom of a stairway
which led up to a tower. It picked up the scent again and tore off
toward the missile silo. There were danger signs on the fence but
the gate was unlocked and pulled open several feet, just enough for
a man to pass through. The wolf retreated, made a slow circle,
looked at the area beyond the fence, then returned to check out the
rest of the buildings.

Unlocked doors yawned open in the breeze. The
wolf listened for movement, voices, tilted its head to catch any
scent of danger. The air was as vacant as the small outpost. It
passed what looked like a post office then darted into a clothing
store. There were racks for clothes with little more than frayed
rags and empty hangers. But one glass case held out hope. The wolf
quickly shifted to Sara. The warm air licked her bare skin.
Although Sara was sure she was alone, she didn’t like the exposed
feeling of walking around nude. She pulled out one of the garments
and unfolded it. All of the garments were blue in color and
resembled one piece janitorial suits. But it would have to do. Most
of them were in a large size. Settling on the one lone medium size,
Sara slipped into the suit. Six inches of fabric flopped past her
toes. This wouldn’t do at all.

There were drawers by the counter. Searching
through them, Sara found a pair of scissors. She slipped out of the
jumpsuit, folded it in half, laid it across the counter, and cut
off the sleeves and half of the length in the pant legs. With this
heat, the last thing Sara wanted was anything long. She slipped
back into the suit and zipped it up. Deep pockets were on the sides
of the pant legs. Now she needed shoes. The doors below the counter
opened up to a mixture of dust, dirt, and dead snake carcasses.
Sara shuddered and checked the cabinets on the opposite wall.
Success. Several boxes were stacked in the cabinet. Sizes were
stamped on the boxes. She selected a size seven and opened the
box.

“
Yuk.” Black work boots were not a
girl’s best friend. She moved to the next cabinet. “Yes.” These
boxes contained blue and white athletic shoes. Sara shuffled
through the boxes until she found a size seven.

A search of the rest of the store didn’t
yield socks. After lacing the shoes and plaiting her hair, Sara
turned to leave. A door in the back had a sign which said,
Authorized Personnel Only. Do Not Enter.

Her curiosity piqued, Sara walked over and
pressed her ear to the door. Nothing. She tried the doorknob.
Warped from the heat, the door was wrestled free from the lock by
brute strength. The door opened to a round room, no more than six
feet across, with what looked like chrome walls. She stepped into
the room and the door snapped shut. Sara jumped. This side of the
door was paneled in chrome, like the walls. And there wasn’t a
doorknob.

Vertical lights flashed on opposite sides of
the tubular room. Then she heard a sound, a whooshing, like air
escaping. Her ears started to feel strange. The room was
dropping.

“
What’s happening?” Sara braced herself
against the side, palms flat against the wall. Her heart pounded in
her chest and she felt panic set in. She tried to count the
seconds. How far down did this chute go? How many floors? Was it
really descending or was it an illusion?

At the count of ten, Sara felt the room
slowing down. She was surprised she didn’t have to yawn to pop her
ears. It was as though this makeshift elevator were
pressure-controlled. She heard a hiss but nothing happened. Was she
stuck in this tiny place with no way out? But then the chrome door
slid open. Sara stared at the room beyond. It was as large as her
living room at home. All chrome and glossy wood with a floor…where
was the floor? It looked like she was stepping out of a spacecraft
with nothing more than the universe under her feet. There were
stars and comets, distant universes. Another illusion? She tapped
one foot where she thought the floor should be. It was solid. Sara
smiled. It was a glass floor and underneath it was a map of the
universe.

“
Neat.” She emerged from the elevator
and made her way to the doorway. She stared down a long hall to her
right. It was empty. There was a shorter hallway to her left with a
door. She went for the door. It opened out to a short set of
concrete stairs.

Dagger leaped from the couch, gun in hand as
a sharp alarm blared. “What the hell?” Checking his watch, he saw
that he had slept for almost two hours. Shadows passed beyond the
closed blinds. He scrambled on all fours to the closest window and
splayed the blinds. Hordes of people were walking down the
cobblestone street. Kids in baseball caps, mothers pushing
strollers, men casually dressed, others in lab coats.

“
Shit.” Dagger opened the door and
peered out. Staying in the shadows, he waited until the last of the
group passed, then he moved along the overhang.

The alarm died as people stood around in
clusters. Dagger found shelter behind one of the large concrete
pillars and watched from a distance. The workers were talking,
laughing. Were they doctors? He doubted it. Something told him they
were researchers. There wasn’t a clipboard among them though, much
less a briefcase. It was like the town of Stepford. An alarm sounds
and they all walk out in unison. What comes next?

A straggler approached close to the pillar.
Dagger pulled back and waited. There was something familiar about
the way she walked. It couldn’t be! Just as she passed close by
him, Dagger reached out, wrapped the gun arm around her waist,
clamped a hand over her mouth, and pulled her behind the
pillar.

She tensed and he could feel her start to
struggle. “What the hell are you doing here?” he whispered in her
ear. Sara relaxed against him and he took his hand away.

“
Saving your ass.”

“
Yeah, right. I thought Skizzy had you
under lock and key.”

“
Nice try, big guy.”

“
Sara.” Dagger tried to keep his anger
in check. “This is dangerous. You have no idea what you are walking
into.” He jutted his chin toward the courtyard. “As you can see, we
are a bit outnumbered.”

Sara gave her patented eye roll, said, “Oh,
jeez,” and pulled away from him.

“
Sara!” Dagger whispered as she slipped
from his grasp and strolled over to the closest cluster. He aimed
the gun, ready to shoot if necessary. He watched as she approached
a group of five people. Not one person acknowledged her presence.
She turned back to Dagger, smiled, then walked through
them…literally. It was as though they weren’t even there. Sara
turned and walked right back through them as though they were wisps
of air.

Dagger shook his head in amazement as he
joined her. “How did you do that?”

“
They are holograms.” She nodded toward
the ceiling. “Just like the sky. Everything is fake, Dagger. The
dogs and kids playing in the park, the cricket sounds. I was able
to see partially through the people.” Sara’s enhanced eyesight
could detect things Dagger couldn’t. “I spent time walking the
area. The horizon isn’t even real. It’s just made to look like wide
open spaces.”

The crowd started to disperse, fading into
various doorways or dematerializing, it was hard to tell. Within
seconds the courtyard was abandoned again leaving Dagger and Sara
gaping after their transitory visitors. Sara did a slow turn,
studying the buildings, much the same way Dagger had when he first
stumbled out of the stairwell. “Want to explore?”

Dagger shoved the gun back into the holster
and moved toward the bench. “I need to rest my legs a bit more
after trekking down one mile of stairs.” He saw the look of utter
amusement lighting up her eyes. “What?” He plopped down on the
bench next to her feeling every muscle scream for relief.

“
You walked down one mile of
stairs?”

“
Yeah.”

Her smile spread, brightening her eyes even
more. “I took the elevator.”

“
What?”

Sara laughed, that carefree laugh that
sometimes made him feel as though he brought some joy into her
life. Other times, like now, he felt like the ass end of a very bad
joke.

“
The clothing store had a closet or
storage room. I was curious because it was completely empty and was
a strange, tubular shape. Once I stepped inside, the door slid shut
before I could stop it. There weren’t any buttons or controls but I
felt it plummeting. I ended up here.” She placed her chin on his
shoulder and stared up at him with those gorgeous eyes. “And you
walked down over five thousand feet?”

He held up a hand in warning. “Don’t. I may
be tired, but I’m still armed.”

Sara stifled a laugh, grabbed his hand and
placed it palm down on the bench with her hand on top of his. “Feel
it?”

“
So? It’s marble, slightly
warm.”

“
No, the movement. I can feel the
ground, the bench. Everything has a slight humming or
vibration.”

Dagger concentrated, tried to feel what she
was sensing. And then it hit him. It felt as though some mild
electrical charge was arcing through the air. “Yeah, I do.”

“
There’s an electrical source
somewhere. The holograms, the sounds, the movement of the clouds in
the sky, something is controlling everything.”

“
Or someone.” Dagger lifted the silver
tube clipped to a belt loop. “Skizzy’s invention has scrambled any
cameras in the area if there are any.”

“
You haven’t seen signs of life, have
you?”

Dagger shook his head. “It’s as though
everyone left in a pretty big hurry. They didn’t even take time to
empty coffee cups.” If he had found coffee cups with warm coffee he
would immediately suspect everyone was holed up in some large panic
room somewhere sealed off from everything yet with a screen to
monitor what he and Sara were doing. It wasn’t a far-fetched
idea.

Sara stood abruptly. “You’ve had enough rest.
Let’s go check out the neighborhood. There are houses down the
block.”

“
Damn, my Kimber for a car.” His legs
protested as he stood.

An overhead door across the courtyard started
to roll open. Dagger grabbed his gun and he and Sara darted for the
nearest pillar. They waited as the door ended its ascent. “Check it
out,” he told Sara.

“
Sure, I’m the one who gets her head
blown off.” But it was Sara’s enhanced eyesight that he needed.
“All I see are motorcycles of some sort.”

Dagger peered over the top of her head. She
was right. From what he could see, it appeared to be a garage. “No
humans, animals, or holograms?”

“
No.”

They crossed the courtyard, eyes scanning the
buildings, windows, looking for signs of life. Once inside the
garage, they saw close to twenty vehicles resembling motorcycles
but without wheels. They were made of a steel gray metallic
construction, built for two people with a platform to place the
feet but without pedals.

“
Strange. I don’t even see a start
button.”

“
What’s stranger,” Sara added, “is that
you no sooner mentioned needing a vehicle when we suddenly have a
choice of vehicles.”

Dagger let that slide right off the logical
side of his brain. He was too busy trying to figure out how to turn
the damn thing on. “Bizarre. No key, no gas cap.” He slipped the
sunglasses on and studied the front panel.

Sara climbed on the back and wrapped her arms
around Dagger’s waist. “Maybe you just have to tell it to go.” The
vehicle started humming and Sara let out a yelp as it rose six
inches off the ground.

CHAPER 29

The vehicle moved silently through the
streets, passing what appeared to be a commercial area and into a
residential compound. The vehicle was so quiet they didn’t have to
scream to hear each other, not like when they road Dagger’s
Harley.

“
It’s hydrogen or steam-powered or
something.” Dagger turned the grips on the handlebar and realized
he could control the speed. Not everything was out of his control.
“This is like a Hover,” Dagger said. “Skizzy found a print out for
an experimental vehicle on a government web site. If the price of
gas keeps going up, we’ll all be driving these.”