“Shock it. Must be a lead panel. Something’s in there.”
Thin lines surrounded the square of un-dusted flooring. Nyssa had seen something like that before. She took out a spool of wire and formed it into a long hook. Poking forward with this extension, she jiggled the handle. Nothing. The handle resisted turning.
“Locked. And probably wired.” She sucked in her bottom lip and took out her new lockpicks. Ideally, touch and sound were the main tools of lockpicking, feeling and hearing those tumblers click into place. Now she needed to stay back a step, though. She unbent the wire and maneuvered it into the keyhole, trying to feel what sort of lock it was. It seemed fairly simple. Nothing she couldn’t foil with a simple bump key. Increasing the magnification on her goggles, she dug out the needed tools. She focused on the lock. Scratches marred the area around the keyhole. She wasn’t the first person to try this.
Threading her wire through the hole in the top of the bump key, she attached it firmly to the wire-arm. She stood a yard back from the door and guided the key into the lock. So far so good.
“I need something heavy and expendable.” She hurried back to one of the sitting rooms. A brass bust sat on the mantle over the empty fireplace. “Perfect.”
Hoisting the heavy artwork up, she brought it back to the door. She gave the wire-arm a twist then tossed the bust. It crashed into the door, hitting the bump key squarely. Something snapped. The square of floor fell away. The bust clattered down into a hole, and a rancid smell rose from the chute beneath. Nyssa gagged. A grinding noise rumbled through the floorboards, and the trapdoor slammed shut again.
Nyssa felt cold. She knew that smell. It reminded her of when a rat had died beneath her floorboards at the reform school, except stronger. She tried not to think of what lay at the bottom of that chute.
Shaking off her disgust, she gave the wire arm another twist. The door creaked open. Nyssa hopped over the trapdoor, unwilling to trust it with her weight. She shut the door behind her to block out the smell.
She scanned the room, flipping through the various settings on her goggles. “Jackpot.”
Bookshelves lined two of the small room’s walls, but the third, the one directly in front of her, had three more mirrors. A keyboard rested on a platform beneath the middle mirror. A barely perceptible hum tickled Nyssa’s ears, and in “field detection mode” the mirrors all had a yellow luminescence.
“Still live.” She strode up to the center mirror and looked for a switch. A small, silver lever rested to the right of the frame, clearly set to on. She toggled it. Nothing happened.
Nyssa scrunched her nose. Power definitely flowed to the mirrors, but the computer wouldn’t respond no matter how much she tapped on the keyboard. “Must be another switch somewhere.”
She traced the edges of the mirrors. Multiple wires ran to the center mirror. They twined together before disappearing under the rug. With her goggles on x-ray, she followed the wires across the room to where the bundle ended, unplugged, beside a socket.
“Always the simplest answer.” She chuckled as she inserted the ends of the cords into the port.
There was a click and a whir, and blue light flooded the room.
“Who are you?” a mechanical voice, a bit like the chime of a music box but deeper, rose from the mirrors. Nyssa jumped.
“My name is Nyssa.” She swallowed. “You can see me?” She stepped closer, squinting at the now glowing mirrors.
“The mirrors allow me to observe the interior of the house. I should be able to see every room, but only this monitoring station seems to be active.” The voice sharpened. “Did you disable the others?”
“No, in fact, I think I just enabled this one.” She backed up a step. Shock me, did I just turn on the security system? That has to be the biggest blunder in the history of cat burglary.
The door latches snapped into place with a loud click.
Nyssa bolted for the door, her hand fumbling at the knob. It wouldn’t move.
That blasted computer is tied into the locks somehow. How can I disable it? Technically I'm not a thief. Can I convince it of that? Would it know Albriet? Or Rivera?
“How can I trust you?” The glow from the mirror vibrated in response to the voice emanating from it. “You aren’t on the Creator’s staff. I know them all. Where are they? Where is the Creator? How did you get in here?”
“Look.” She faced the mirrors again. “I don’t know where anyone is. This place has been abandoned for years, and Mr. Rivera sent me to see what happened to Professor Dalhart.” She scanned the room for a way out. The wires she’d just plugged in rested a few feet from her. Bingo. Easy fix. She slid one foot towards them.
“What do you mean, abandoned? How long have I been offline?”
She moved her other foot closer. Her toe nudged the wire, and the mirror flickered.
“Wait! Don’t! Please.” The computer’s voice turned to a wail.
Nyssa froze. A computer with emotions? How do you program that?
“I see what you’re doing. Don’t unplug me. I need to know what happened. The last time I was online, there were two dozen people working here, as well as the Creator. How can you not know what happened to them?”
Nyssa hesitated, shifting from foot to foot. Keeping herself well in reach of the plug, she answered. “I’m not sure. Mr. Rivera hired me because no one has come out of this house in nearly four years.” Except the insane maid, but no telling how the computer would process that information.
“Four years? And the Creator? Is he alive?”
“Professor
