Finn Fancy Necromancy (36 page)

Vee took the man's right hand—the hand with his persona ring—between both her own then, and brought it down between her thighs. Not so high up that they were breaking indecency laws, but enough that his fingers were brushing the hemline of her dress. The pair received amused, disapproving, or jealous glances from the people who noticed. Zeke growled.

Vee rubbed at the guard's hand for a minute as he talked to her with a creepy leer on his face.

Man, I owed Vee big-time.

Zeke started to rise, but I put a hand on his shoulder. Vee stood, and the guard joined her. She leaned in and said something, and he nodded and rushed off toward the front entrance. Vee nodded at us and headed in the opposite direction.

“Thank the gods,” Sammy muttered, still clicking away at her laptop. “If I had to watch much more of that I was going to blow disgusto chunks.”

I dropped money on the table, giving one last sad look toward the kitchen where my pizza must still be cooking, and Zeke, Sammy, and I followed after Vee. We all rendezvoused at the 5 Point Café several blocks away. The 5 Point was Sammy's recommendation, a small crowded place evenly divided between a dive bar and a greasy spoon diner. Vee already sat at the booth secured by Mort, a sweatshirt over her dress. But she sat straight, not huddled in on herself like normal. Zeke, Sammy, and I joined them.

“You okay?” I asked as we settled into the seats.

“Yeah,” Vee said, sounding surprised at her own answer. “It was … fun, in a way. Especially sending him off to wait for me at another bar far, far away.”

“Nice,” Sammy said and grabbed a menu.

“Here.” Vee held up a red persona ring. “Sarah did awesome. He shouldn't notice he's wearing a fake until he returns to work tomorrow. I got the password too.”

Mort rubbed at his eyes. “So we're really doing this?”

“Afraid so,” I replied.

We ordered food and chatted, killing a few hours until it was time for the actual break-in. They didn't have pizza, but the hash browns were damn well perfect.

*   *   *

“Once we get past the mundy security,” Zeke said, looking around the dining room, “we'll need to get from the mundy museum down to the crypt. To find the door to the crypt, we gotta enter a code onto a command chair. But to reach the chair, we need the ring and password.”

“And you know the code for the chair?” Sammy asked.

“Yeah. The dead warden told us.”

“And if they've changed it since he died?” she asked.

Zeke cracked his knuckles. “Then we need to be prepared to defend ourselves while you figure the code out.”

“Defend against what?” Mort asked.

“Bad things,” I said, and looked at Heather. “We may need a pretty wide variety of protection potions. They have several defenses that use potions pumped in as gas, but they change frequently, so we're not certain what the effects will be.”

Heather looked down at her hands as she squeezed them together. “Finn, I'm sorry, I can't help you. If you got caught, I—my son, I—I'm sorry.”

Sammy rolled her eyes. “There's an easier way to protect against gas attacks than using more potions, believe me.”

“Gas is the least of my concerns anyway,” Zeke said.

“I've noticed,” I replied.

Zeke glared at me, unamused.

*   *   *

Zeke, Mort, and I stood outside a side exit to the EMP, waiting in the chill night air. Zeke wore his enforcer outfit in full camo mode, with his duffel slung across his back. I wore Carhartt work pants and steel-toe boots bought in the city, and a leather biker jacket left behind by Dawn's ex. Not as good as the magical armor that Zeke had, but at least as good as
+
1 leather armor. If, you know, such a thing really existed.

Sammy's voice whispered in my ear through the device she'd lent me, a Bluebeard or something. “Alarm is down, cameras are on a loop, and the warden patrol just moved past you. You're good to go.”

“Ten-four, good buddie,” I said and nodded at Zeke.

Zeke used his skeleton key to open the door and his Casio watch to neutralize the threshold wards. We slipped inside. The lack of pulsing lights, pounding music, and noisy customers made the place feel a bit cold and cavernous, a dark structure of concrete, steel, and dead glass.

We moved past the ticket kiosk and headed down the second stairwell on the left, a long, narrow descent between concrete walls. Near the base, Zeke said, “Hold up.” He dug through his duffel, and pulled out a glass potion bottle and some fishing line. He set up a booby trap with quick, efficient movements. “That should hold off any wardens for a bit if things go to hell.”

We continued past the stairs into an antechamber, and to our left the wall lit up with row after row of etched hologram faces captured in glowing blue squares. The sign overhead read “Science Fiction Hall of Fame.” I spotted Bradbury, Le Guin, Asimov, Butler, and more. One of the faces, H. G. Welles, looked up at us and said, “Your identity, sirs?”

“Warden Graham,” I said, holding up my hand with the warden's persona ring. “Escorting guests.”

Welles' gaze narrowed on the ring. He gave a nod. “Proceed, constable.”

Past the antechamber was a tunnel of sorts, made of tubes of white light. There was room to skirt past the tunnel, but that would be a mistake. The tunnel was designed to strip away glamours and identify feybloods, and the door we needed would not open for us unless we passed through this first. I exchanged anxious glances with Zeke, then proceeded through. I felt the light tingle of magical energy, but nothing more. Zeke and Mort followed. So far, so good.

The science fiction museum itself appeared to be a maze of free-standing walls lined with props and displays. I spotted the command chair to our left and had a moment equivalent perhaps to when a believer spots a holy relic. Kirk's actual captain's chair from
Star Trek
. The rest of the museum fairly disappeared for me and I crossed to the chair. Encased behind protective Plexiglas, the chair sat thronelike upon a gray pedestal, with tribble dolls scattered around it like softball-size balls of fur. The chair itself was black leather, with wooden armrests, and silver control panels ran along each side covered in lights, switches, and buttons. A magnificent sight.

“We've reached the chair,” I whispered.

“Try not to have a nerdgasm,” Sammy's voice buzzed in my ear.

“Acknowledged,
Enterprise,
” I replied. “Kirk out.” Yeah, my sister knew me well.

Zeke waved at the chair, “Get ready, but don't start 'til I'm back. I'm gonna secure the perimeter.”

He stalked off to set more booby traps on the other entrances.

“Sammy?” I whispered. “It's time to get Petey on the line.”

“Will do,” she replied.

“Thanks. You and Vee should head for the ferry now.”

“I feel weird just taking off. We can wait a bit longer.”

“We talked about this already. If something goes wrong, it won't help us if you get caught. And Zeke insisted Vee go home as soon as possible.”

Mort gave me a nervous look. “Is there something wrong?”

“No,” I said. “Everything's fine. Sammy and Vee are leaving is all.”

“Fine,” Sammy said. “On our way, Captain Bossypants. I'll be on the line if you need me.”

“You're positive you can talk and drive at the same time?” I asked.

“You sure you can think and talk at the same time?” she asked.

“Not really,” I replied. I wandered over to look at the nearby props while Sammy and Zeke were busy, but stayed within sight of the command chair—I didn't want to set off any traps. I saw the earpiece Uhura wore in
Star Trek,
some sunglasses from something called
Stargate SG-1,
and a whole ton of stuff from
Battlestar Galactica
. Apparently, there was a new series!

Gods, I hoped I didn't get exiled.

Zeke returned and plopped down his bag in front of the command chair. “Good to go, Gramaraye,” he said.

“Pete's on,” Sammy's voice buzzed.

“Hi, Finn,” Pete said.

“Hi, Petey.” I returned to the command chair. “Just hang on, I'll let you know if I need your help.”

I turned the warden's persona ring around so the stone was palm-side down, then placed my hand against the Plexiglas. I could feel magic, dangerous magic, beneath my hand like a swarm of pissed-off hornets buzzing and beating against the Plexiglas. I swallowed and said, “
Aperire Ostium,
Meadowlark.”

An archway opened in the Plexiglas, spreading out from my hand and granting access to the chair. The sense of dangerous magic dissipated.

“The daily password worked,” I said. “Tell Vee thanks.”

“Roger that, geek command,” Sammy replied.

“Masks,” Zeke said. He reached into his bag, and pulled out a gas mask—Sammy's simple solution to gaseous alchemical attacks. I pulled a similar mask from the satchel on my hip and slipped it over my head. It felt stifling, limited my peripheral vision, and smelled of pickles and farts, which I did my best not to wonder about since we'd purchased them second hand from an Army/Navy Surplus store.

I stepped up to the chair, and sat in it with reverent slowness. I ran my hands along the smooth wooden arms, then leaned forward and said in my best Shatnerian, “Sulu, set a course … for … Awesome, warp factor five.” Nerdgasm achieved.

“Quit screwin' around, fool, and put in the code,” Zeke whispered harshly.

Right. I leaned back and pulled the instructions from my pocket. On the right-hand console were five white buttons with round lights next to them. On the left-hand side, eight colored plastic switches, and nine lights of various shapes and bright colors that looked like costume jewelry.

I flipped four of the eight switches in the order described in the instructions, then held my breath and pressed the white button labeled “Jettison Pod.” A single one of the jeweled lights flickered briefly.

Then nothing happened.

And more nothing happened.

I looked at the instructions, and at the switches again. Everything looked correct.

“Do you see a door anywhere?” I asked Zeke, my voice muffled by the mask. I stood to peer at the wall to our right where a door was supposed to have revealed itself.

The archway in the Plexiglas disappeared, replaced once again by a clear but solid wall, blocking my exit.

Pink gas poured out in a swirling cloud from the base of the chair, rapidly filling up the enclosed space.

“Crap,” I said. “Pete, I think I'm going to need your help.”

*   *   *

After the planning meeting in the dining room broke up, I spent several hours in my room, coding on my Commodore. It felt good, relaxing, like meditation. I could almost pretend everything that had happened—Felicity's attack, my exile, and all the craziness since my return—was all just a dream, a really bad dream.

Pete watched me, propped up in my bed and wrapped in bandages, chatting with me as I worked. He looked better, or at least not in so much pain, though I knew there would still be ugly scars under those bandages even with Heather's help.

“I'm still mad at you,” he said at one point. “But I don't want to be. It doesn't feel good.”

“It's okay. I understand. And I'm sorry, again. I love you, bro.”

“Love you too.” He took a bite of chocolate pudding. “And I love pudding. But I love you more.”

I finished coding, entered the save command. I ran to the bathroom and then fixed some Mexican cocoa while the program saved amidst the loud buzzing and grinding of the floppy disk drive. When it was done, I moved my computer and monitor beside the bed, then booted the game back up. “I made you a game, Petey,” I said.

What I'd created was a variation of a game we used to play together called Mastermind. In the original version, one person set up four pegs of various colors, hidden from the other player, and that other player had to guess the color and position of the pegs by process of elimination. Like in all puzzle games, Pete blew everyone else away when it came to Mastermind.

I'd created a version on the Commodore before exile, and tweaked it now based on the buttons on Kirk's chair. I'd set the game to randomly choose four switches to be “on,” and the order in which they had to be flipped to win.

“Here,” I said, “Watch me play.”

I played a round. It took me eighteen tries to get it right.

“It's like Mastermind,” Pete said.

“It's important you practice this, Petey. If something goes wrong, we'll need you to figure out this code—super fast.”

*   *   *

I plopped back down in the chair as Pete said, “Okay. Try one, two, three, four.”

As I reset the switches and began flipping one through four, Mort turned his ring around and pressed it against the outside of the Plexiglas, and said what I assume was the password, though the chamber cut off outside noise. The arch didn't appear for him, and the gas continued to pour out. It reached my waist now, and the skin of my legs began to tingle.

I hit the white button.

“Pete? Two lights flickered.”

“Okay. Try five, six, seven, and eight.”

Zeke's baton extended in his hand and burst into blue-white fire. He said something to Mort, who moved back, then Zeke struck at the Plexiglas. There was a bright yellow flash, and he was thrown back several feet to hit a wall—just as a flash of lightning speared through the spot where he'd been standing. I followed the path of the lightning to its source.