absolute, there can’t be degrees of it. A thing is unique or it isn’t. It’s not
The thing is silent, but it gives off this ominous vibe that makes me feel like I would be the world’s biggest idiot if I touched it. Maybe I’ve made myself out to be the Indiana Jones of the seventh grade, but the truth is that I get the phlegm of fear in my throat again, thicker than before, and I have to keep swallowing hard to be able to breathe right. Don’t ask about my heart. It’s just thudding like some pneumatic hammer.
Out of the almost-liquid pooling darkness comes that cold smooth voice again, just as pompous as ever. I want to smack him, I swear I do. “Jolie Ann Harmony does not have project clearance.”
“Who are you?”
“Jolie Ann Harmony does not have project clearance.”
“Where are you?”
He clams up.
Whoever this guy is, I’m sure he’s just as dangerous as any axe murderer and I should pussyfoot around him and be polite, but he really annoys me. He’s judgmental. He’s bossy. He won’t engage in a conversation.
“You’re judgmental,” I tell him, “bossy, and just generally impossible.”
He’s silent so long I don’t expect a reply, but then he says, “Nevertheless, you do not have project clearance.”
“Well, I think I do.”
“No, you do not.”
“Do, too.”
“That is incorrect.”
“What’s the name of your project?”
“That is classified information.”
For a minute, I stand listening to the silence and watching the glowing sphere, which now looks like a giant crystal ball, though I’m pretty sure it’s metallic. Then I give him a little what-for: “If you really want to know, I don’t even think you have a project. The whole thing’s a silly load of cow dung. It’s just something you made up so you’d feel important.”
“Jolie Ann Harmony does not have project clearance.”
“Has anyone ever told you how tedious you are?”
If I’ve wounded him, he’s not going to admit it.
“So if you have a project, where are the workers and all? Projects have workers of one kind or another, you know, guys in overalls or uniforms, or lab jackets, or some other getup. I don’t see anyone. This whole place is deserted.”
He gives me the silent treatment again. I’m supposed to be intimidated, but it doesn’t work.
“In the room before this one, there’s six dead guys wearing airtight suits, look like they’ve been dead for years. All I’ve seen are gross dead people, and you can’t have a project with just dead people.”
Finally Mr. Mystery speaks: “I am authorized to terminate intruders.”
“No, you’re not.”
“Yes, I am.”
“If you were, you’d already have terminated me.”
He seems to have to brood about that one.
I’m not sure that was the smartest thing I could have said, so I give it another shot: “Anyway, I’m not an intruder. I’m like an explorer. A refugee and an explorer. Where is this stupid place — somewhere on the southern edge of Fort Wyvern? Wyvern’s been closed since before I was born.”
After a hesitation, he says, “Then you must be a child.”
“What a staggering feat of deduction. I’m overwhelmed. I really am. Genius. Here’s the thing — your project was abandoned a long time ago, and you’re just like some watchman who makes sure nobody steals the expensive equipment and sells it for scrap.”
“That is incorrect. The project was never abandoned. It was mothballed pending a new approach to the problem, which apparently has taken some time to devise.”
“What problem?”
“That is classified information.”
“You make me want to spit, you really do.”
Embedded in the floor, a series of small yellow path lamps comes on, beginning directly in front of my feet and leading away from the floating sphere. It’s not a very subtle suggestion, in spite of the fact they aren’t very bright lights, they’re like a procession of little luminous sea creatures laboriously making their way along the bottom of a deep, deep ocean trench so far from the sun that the surrounding water is as black as petroleum. At the end of this line of lights, a curving set of metal stairs suddenly appears out of the blackness when tube lighting, also dim, barely brightens the face of each tread and glows wanly under the handrail. In fact, the stairs and all are so softly lighted, they seem almost to be a mirage that might dissolve before my eyes at any moment, like something you’d have to climb in a fairy tale to get to the cloud city where the all the fairies live.
Path lighting, stair lighting, any kind of safety lighting is meant to be bright enough so that you don’t trip and fall. There must be a reason these are stingy with the wattage, so I wonder if maybe the sphere, which is beautiful but creepy, might have to be kept in heavy darkness for some reason.
I follow the path lights, but then I’m not totally convinced the stairs are a swell idea. I’m getting pretty far away from Orc and all that.
Out of the pooled darkness, Mr. Mystery says, “When you were talking to Harry, you mentioned a name that I recognized — Hiskott.”
“What a piece of work you are — eavesdropping, snooping. That’s pretty scummy, you know.”
“This is my dominion. You were trespassing.”
“Well, whether or not that’s true—”
“It is true.”
“—whether or not it is, you’re still scummy.”
“Come up the stairs, and talk with me about Norris Hiskott.”
FOURTEEN
The truck is equipped with a flat mirror and a convex mirror on each side of the cab, and a spot mirror on each front fender, all automatically adjustable, but the only thing I’m going to need them for is to be sure that the driver is still hiking away from his rig. And he is, clearly not tempted to come running back as soon as he hears me slam the cab door.
The big-bore engine is idling as I settle behind the wheel, but a well-integrated sound-dampening system isolates the engine noise so effectively that I’ve been in cars that are louder. It’s a cozy cab; and if I were going to drive it any distance, I would need yet another NoDoz to keep from being lulled to sleep by the low and comforting sound of the 15-liter engine filtering through the insulation.
I put the pistol between my legs — muzzle forward.
From the face of the overhead storage shelf and the flap door above the citizens-band radio, I remove the family photograph, the picture of the driver and his golden retriever, and the JESUS LOVES ME reminder card. I tuck them in my wallet and return the wallet to my hip pocket.
There’s GPS navigation, but as I am not driving even half a mile, I don’t need to enter an address. I release the brakes, put this big boy in gear, and head south on the county road toward the entrance to Harmony Corner. I haven’t driven one of these often and not for some time, but I don’t need to build up speed and take any chances, because it isn’t my intention to use the eighteen-wheeler as a ram or anything like that. I’m Odd but I’m not nuts.
