He made up his mind. Glancing up and down the empty hallway, he darted up the stairs to the third floor, and then the fourth.
Tabby, still at the door, turned to peer at him, then scratched at the door in a demand to be let into the room beyond.
“Can you smell her?” Josh asked, his voice low. “Can you smell Amy in there?” His heart pounding, he reached out and pushed the door wider.
The cat darted in.
A moment later Josh followed. His eyes scanned the room, falling almost instantly on the computer terminal that sat on the desk near the window.
Dr. Engersol’s computer.
Moving quickly, Josh crossed to the terminal and began tapping at the keyboard.
This time, no demands for security codes appeared.
He started searching through directories he’d never seen before. In the third directory a file name caught his eye:
GELAB CAM
His mind instantly translated the file name: George Engersol Laboratory. Camera.
Using the mouse on the desk, he placed the cursor over the file name and clicked twice.
A window opened at the top of the screen and an image appeared.
Josh stared at it in silence, for what he was seeing was a laboratory he’d never seen before at the Academy, filled with equipment that, though he had no idea of its use, still made his flesh crawl.
Instinctively, he knew that he had found Adam Aldrich and Amy Carlson.
Far to the left he could barely make out the Croyden computer in its separate room, but at the end of the room he could see two tanks, each of which had a monitor on the wall above it.
One of the monitors was blank, but the other one displayed an image of Adam Aldrich.
Gathered around a desk near the tanks were Dr. Engersol, Hildie Kramer, and Jeff Aldrich.
It looked as though they were arguing about something.
Sound!
There had to be a sound system, too!
Frantically, Josh set to work, searching for the files that would activate the microphones and speakers he was already certain were there. For if Adam had been able to talk to him through the virtual reality program, he must be able to talk to Engersol as well.
All he had to do was find the right files and activate the right programs.…
Far below, in the laboratory, Adam Aldrich spoke, formulating the words in his mind, digitizing them and transmitting them to the Croyden as easily and with as little thought as it had once taken him to turn the pages of a book, or run down a beach while he yelled at Jeff.
“We’re being watched.”
Engersol’s head snapped up from the screen he’d been studying.
“Watched? By whom?”
“Josh,” Adam said. “He’s at your desk, and he’s been watching us.”
Engersol froze. For a moment his rage toward Hildie Kramer threatened to overwhelm him. Had she really been stupid enough to leave his apartment door unlocked? “Go get him, please, Hildie,” he said, forcing himself with each word to keep his voice level, his rage under control. “Bring him down here.” He would deal with Josh now, and with Hildie later.
In the apartment on the fourth floor Josh had finally discovered the program that would allow him to access the sound system in the laboratory, and his blood ran cold as he heard the last words spoken by Adam and Dr. Engersol.
He stared at the screen, paralyzed. What should he do? What
She’d call the security department, and within a minute there would be people looking for him everywhere!
But he had to do something! He reached out to turn off the monitor, but suddenly the image on the screen went blank, replaced a second later by a new image.
Amy.
Josh stared at it in awe. Could it really be her? But she was dead!
No!
Only her body was dead. But she was still alive.
As his eyes remained glued to the screen, he heard a sound in the background.
The elevator.
Hildie was coming.
Josh was about to bolt from the apartment when suddenly Amy grinned at him. And then she spoke, her voice tinny through the small speaker in the computer’s component tower, but nonetheless distinct.
“Don’t worry,” she said.
The screen went blank.
And the elevator drew closer.
28
The car came to a halt at the top of the shaft. Hildie’s A foot, driven by the cold fury that imbued every fiber of her body, tapped impatiently as she waited for the door to slide open.
Nothing happened.
The angry scowl on her face deepening, Hildie jabbed impatiently at the Open Door button.
Still the doors refused to open, but she heard a voice coming over the small emergency public address speaker mounted in the car’s roof.
Amy’s voice.
“Have you ever been trapped in an elevator?” she asked.
Hildie gasped, partly from the surprise of hearing Amy’s voice, partly from a sudden chill at the words she spoke.
“Amy?” she said. There was no response.
Hildie jabbed once more at the Open Door button. Again nothing happened. Her brief chill of fear driven back by her fury, she jabbed at it yet again.
Amy’s voice filled the car once more. “If you want to talk to me, use the phone.”
Hildie fumbled with a small metal door set into the wall of the car just below the control panel. Inside she found a telephone receiver, which she jerked off the hook and pressed to her ear. “Amy?” she demanded, her voice grating. “What do you think you’re doing?”
Amy spoke again, her voice coming not through the speakers this time, but through the phone itself. “Do you like being trapped in the elevator?” she asked.
Hildie thought quickly. She’s a little girl, she reminded herself. This is her idea of a joke. “I don’t suffer from claustrophobia, Amy,” she said. “Small places don’t bother me at all.”
“Really?” Amy asked. “What about falling? I’ve always been terrified of falling.”
Suddenly the floor dropped out from under Hildie as the car fell a few inches, then came to a sudden stop. She staggered, lurching against the wall, catching herself with one hand before she fell. “Amy, what are you doing?” she demanded. “This isn’t funny!”
“It’s not supposed to be funny,” Amy replied, the teasing tone disappearing from her voice. “It’s not supposed to be any funnier than what you and Dr. Engersol did to me!”
