Dead Matter

Co

“I noticed that, too,” I said, humoring him. Exasperated, I pulled out my phone and flipped it open. “Let’s just call this in to the Department. Wesker’ll be pissed I lost one of his Greater and Lesser Arcana people, but at least he might have a way of dealing with this. He had been working with Jane on her technomancy, after all.”

Co

“Fair point,” I said.

“You said she texted you before?” Co

“Let me try it again,” I said and typed in: JANE?

After waiting several minutes of nothing, I shook my head at Co

“Now, then,” Co

He typed away at the directory, looking a bit like Jack Nicholson when he was all crazed and writing in The Shining. “Looks like there’s an assload of shops in this place, but there also seems to be a fairly residential contingent as well.”

“So it’s basically a mall/hotel,” I said.

“Pretty much,” he said, pointing to the screen, “but look. This isn’t really a hotel setup. This looks like it’s mostly residences, as in, people live here permanently.”

“Let me try something,” I said. I stripped off my gloves and entered the residential directory. I typed in: CLAYTON-FORRESTER.

“Kid, I doubt Jane’s been apartment hunting here,” Co

“She may not be apartment hunting,” I said, my stomach clenching in anticipation, “but that doesn’t mean she hasn’t been taking up residence one way or another.”

I hit “enter.”

A long list of names scrolled by, starting with the A’s.

When the directory got into the C territory, it slowed as it came to one name, like the Wheel of Fortune coming to a stop.

Clayton-Forrester, Jane

“There’s no apartment number listed for her,” I said, looking over the entry. I pointed at the screen where there should have been more information. “The rest of these have tower names and apartment numbers, but hers is blank.”

I pressed my psychometric power into the machine, hoping for a result of some kind. My mind’s eye opened and I flashed on Co

“You okay?” Co

I started to respond but he had already turned from me and was staring down at the directory again, his eyes widening. I looked down. The machine was going nuts. Bright flashes of color and countless screens flashed by before our eyes.

“I think we might have found Jane, kid.”

The machine’s screen blinked with pop-up window after pop-up window. Images for various store listings filled up the screen. I tried to follow them, hoping to notice some sort of pattern in it all, but it was no use. It was all moving beyond my ability to follow it.

“What the hell’s she doing?” Co

I shook my head. “I have no idea. It’s all too fast…”

Electronic flyers for dozens of the stores popped up on the screen, one of them coming to rest on a page full of designer camping equipment at one of the high-end boutiques here. A highlighted box appeared around one of the items.

“A flashlight?” Co

“Not that I can think of,” I said.

“Well, think harder,” he said, snapping a little. I looked at him. The beard might be gone, but there was still a hint of wildness about him. “Sorry, kid. It’s just that of all the things she could have shown us from this mall, a flashlight seems kind of trivial.”

“Maybe it’s dark where she is and she’s scared,” I offered.

“Maybe,” Co

“I don’t know,” I said after a few minutes of staring at it in frustration. I turned away from the machine to look at Co

“Co

He looked at me for a second, then pointed off into the distance. I followed his hand and stared, not noticing anything at first. Then I saw it. A lit-up sign for one of the boutiques was blinking on and off.

“It’s flickering,” he said. “Maybe that’s what she meant by flashlight?”

Without another word, we headed off toward the store, but as I went to step into it, the sign went dead.

“Hold on, kid,” Co

“I see that,” I said. “Let me check inside the store.”

“Just hold on a second,” he said, looking around. The corridor continued on in a blinding array of shops and restaurants. I joined Co

“There,” I said, pointing up at an overhead light flickering in its socket. “Good eye.”

The two of us raced off down the hall. Now that we knew what we were looking for, it was easy to follow the string of flickering lights as they led us deeper and deeper into the shopping complex. The place was sprawling, full of more shops and restaurants than entire parts of the city. As we ran to follow, much of the crowd thi

“Ick,” I said. “Modern art. And hideous modern art at that.”

“You want to interpret that for me?” Co

“Well, outside of the dead end, I’m thinking that this must be where building staff stores all their out-of-use art pieces. Look at all that. No wonder no one comes down this end of the place. That gear and block thing, those winged statues…”

Co

“Kid, I’m not sure if this is sleep deprivation or the crazy talking still, but those ain’t statues.”

I looked once again at the figures on either side of the frosted glass and wooden wall hanging. While I was thankful Co

“Intimidating-looking,” I said, “but so what?”

“Keep watching,” Co