The Mysterious Lost Child (The Inscrutable Paris Beaufont Book 2)

by Sarah Noffke

  A quick check over his shoulder ensured that no one was watching. The usual giddiness that marked an occasion where he’d make a discovery returned. Faraday turned and scampered into the Serenity Garden, which was full of roses, topiaries, and beautiful statues, interested in what else he’d find.

  He had scurried into the center of the first main area when he realized what was so different about the garden from other days. It had taken a moment for things to register. Then events had moved too quickly for him to deal with properly, and more importantly, escape from.

  The statues in the Serenity Garden were moving. They were alive. Now they had him cornered…

  Chapter Forty-Nine

  The new clothes made Paris feel like an imposter already, and she had to remind herself that she had to own the appearance. No one would automatically guess that she wasn’t Emma Blackstone. People usually wanted to believe that a person was who they said they were. Plus, she had a badge.

  The front lobby of Rose Industries was pretty impressive, especially considering that Amelia Rose had only started her company recently. Paris realized that she kept checking over her shoulder as they strode into the lobby of the skyscraper in London.

  “What’s the deal?” Christine asked at her side.

  “Evil thing that could be following me because I’m a halfling,” Paris answered in a whisper.

  “Oh, is that all,” Christine said sarcastically. “Here I thought you had real problems.”

  “Nope, just trying to fix the meter of love so the world doesn’t crash and burn while also trying not to have my soul sucked out by an unknown evil.”

  Christine rolled her eyes. “If it makes you feel better, I burned my tongue on some hot tea earlier, and if that wasn’t enough, I stubbed my toe on a garden gnome. I’m certain that the little sucker cursed me as he hobbled off toward the Bewilder Forest. He’s probably going to do something awful to me, like overly prune my plants or unfertilize them. They’re vindicative little devils who hold a grudge even if you apologize for punting them across the Enchanted Grounds.”

  Paris shook her head. “I can’t believe I’ve even pretended to have problems when in your presence. Thanks for humbling me.”

  “You’re welcome,” Christine sang as they sauntered up to the metal detector and security checkpoint.

  Security at Rose Industries was tight not only because their CEO was paranoid that Grayson McGregor would ruin her, but also because the technologies they created were incredibly expensive and patent-pending stuff that could shatter the world if released before they were ready.

  The company created things that took small tech and made it nano-sized. Their technology took an app and made it more of a thought. It bordered on magitech, but for mortals. That’s one reason that McGregor Technologies and Rose Industries were fighting so much. They were genius parts of the tech world, and their CEOs were as smart as they came. The truth was they were both full of passion, and if harnessed for one another, they could do even greater things as a true power couple. Currently, while at odds, they were dangerous dictators with nukes aimed at each other.

  “Who you here to see?” the security guard at the first station asked.

  “Amelia Rose.” Paris pulled out her magitech badge. “My name is Emma Blackstone, and we have an appointment with her.” She opened the badge and flashed it at the man.

  His eyes widened, and he grinned, showing a row of crooked yellow teeth. “Wow, the Chief Engineer for NASA. We haven’t had anyone of your caliber at Rose Industries.”

  “Well,” Paris drew out the word, realizing she shouldn’t expand much to keep her cover.

  “And your friend?” The guard pointed at Christine.

  “That’s Wistine Celsh, my assistant,” Paris said at once, reversing the initials of Christine’s first and last names.

  “Very good.” The guard indicated they could move on to the next phase of security clearance.

  “Wistine Celsh?” Christine asked. “Cute. Now my alias will always be that because no one will mistake Christine Welsh for that.”

  “I know,” Paris whispered over her shoulder.

  They paused at the metal detectors in front of a tall security guard. “Hold up your hands when you enter and halt until it finishes scanning you,” the guy informed them.

  Paris waited until he waved her forward, then strode into the metal detector and held up her hands, her blazer and shirt rising to show her midriff. The machine scanned and flashed green.

  “You’re clear, sweetheart.” The guy waved her out of the machine.

  She strode out, waiting for Christine to clear the scanner.

  “Nice abs, sweetheart.” The security official glanced at her sideways.

  Paris gave him the side-eye. “They’re rock solid. Nice head. I look forward to smashing it against something as hard as my abs if you don’t take your eyes off me,” she stated as Christine struck a pose.

  “Hey, it was a compliment, sweetheart,” the guy complained as the detector flashed green, clearing Christine. “You don’t have to get all bent out of shape.”

  “How about you not comment on my body, and I won’t bend you out of shape?” Paris threatened.

  Christine strode out of the machine, grabbed her by the arm, and hauled Paris toward the elevator. She didn’t release her until they were in the closed compartment alone.

  “What?” Paris dusted off her sleeve, although it was fine.

  “You just have to start a fight, don’t you?”

  “He was insulting,” she complained.

  “Although that might be true, you realize that you don’t have to attend every argument you’re invited to, right?”

  Paris blinked at her friend and deflated, never having heard it put so eloquently. “Yeah, no, I guess I don’t.”

  Chapter Fifty

  The secret of the Serenity Garden was fascinating, although Faraday was still uncertain what he was seeing. Many times, he’d explored the English garden full of stone statues of regal-looking men in formal attire and women in maids outfits and simply thought their appearance was to reiterate the formality of Happily Ever After College.

  Whereas the stone statues had been gray before, now they had color and movement. They appeared very much alive although there was something wrong with their actions. They were robotic and didn’t seem to flow naturally.

  Faraday had often gotten the impression that he was at a formal dinner party when in the Serenity Garden, and all the statues were the servants. Some of that observation was because many of the figures resembled Wilfred with his three-piece suit and tails. Several of the sculptures looked very similar to the magitech AI butler in features. Some were younger or older or had their hair parted on the other side, but they all gave off that impression of formal servitude.

  The female statues were similar in their attire, and their features didn’t vary much. There were roughly two dozen living sculptures in the garden, and they were all in a circle around Faraday presently. There would be little hope of escaping from them, and maybe that was okay.

  At first impression, Faraday didn’t think he was necessarily in danger. The statues that had come alive might have cornered him immediately. They might be doing some strange things like swinging their heads strangely or opening their mouths and abruptly closing them. Some might be singing senseless songs. However, they weren’t attacking him.

  “W-Wh-What are you all?” Faraday stuttered, his eyes scanning as he turned in a circle, noticing all the strange characters around him.

  A man dressed in a black suit and tie with short brown hair and a mustache stepped forward and bowed. “At your-your-your service Ma-Ma-Master. I am Alfred and ready to assist you.”

  “I am Alfred, and I am ready to assist you,” all the male statues chorused around the squirrel, their heads bobbing sideways strangely.

  They all had the same British accent as Wilfred, but their voices were mechanical.

  A woman in a long black dress and
apron curtsied before Faraday. “It is a pleasure to serve you, Master. Please just say my name, and I’ll appear to assist you.”

  “You can call me Mary,” all the women statues said in unison.

  Faraday pieced it all together. “You all are magitech AI servants.” He was still missing a giant piece of the puzzle. Why would the fairy godmothers have a bunch of strangely operating AI servants in the Serenity Garden that only came alive on Tuesdays—the one day it was forbidden to enter the area?

  “May I get sir anything?” the first Alfred to introduce himself asked. “Master must be tired after the long journey. You’ve been gone for ages.”

  “I have?” Faraday scratched his head.

  “For a very long time,” the first Mary said. “We have not seen anyone in many decades.”

  “You haven’t?” Faraday watched as one of the butlers turned, doing something near the large cascading fountains.

  That Alfred spun proudly, brandishing a tray with a teacup and saucer. Faraday had often seen this prop on a few of the stone statues and wondered about it, but now it looked as real as the ones inside FGE.

  “Sir, would you like some rainwater?” Alfred asked. “I have a lovely variety from the east part of the garden.”

  Faraday shook his head. Something was obviously wrong with the magitech AI servants. Definitely a few screws loose, although Faraday didn’t know that any of them contained a single real screw. He was uncertain of the physical hardware that made up the magitech AIs, although investigating Wilfred had been on his to-do list.

  “Would sir like some bark and worms with his tea?” one of the maids said at Faraday’s back.

  He spun to find one of the Marys holding a tray, and on it were pieces of tree bark arranged neatly and wiggling worms beside it.

  “I’m fine, thank you.” Faraday heard something behind him. He turned again to find one of the Marys washing the fountain's side, which was a typical job for a servant to do. Except that it was an outdoor fountain—and she was doing it with mud.

  “Oh, I can never get that spot out,” the maid fussed. “I will simply be at this all day.” She had covered one entire side of the once-pristine fountain in thick mud.

  Faraday suddenly felt like he was in a strange dreamland. Almost as if he was a regular person in the ordinary world who had fallen down a hole of sorts into a bizarre wonderland where people had weird birthday and tea parties. The notion struck Faraday as an interesting one, and he made note that someone should write that story at some point. Maybe he would and call it Faraday in Curiosity-Ville.

  For the time being, he needed to figure out what was going on in his reality.

  “Does sir take rust or salt in his tea?” an Alfred asked while stepping forward, carrying his tray of teacups filled with grass shavings.

  That was when Faraday realized what was wrong with all these magitech—they were all insane. That wasn’t a very technical term nor an acceptable scientific assessment, but he knew he was correct. Whatever minds these magitech AIs had, they’d lost it. Or maybe that was the issue all along, he pondered. These servants were the mistake prototypes created before Wilfred, who was an impressive piece of magitech.

  The question now for Faraday was, why were these living statues all here in the Serenity Garden? More importantly, why did they come alive on Tuesdays?

  To answer that question, Faraday needed to test his hypothesis on the AIs being flawed models.

  “Can you tell me where the conservatory is at FGE?” Faraday asked the nearest Alfred.

  The butler held his chin up high. “Certainly, sir. It’s on the main space station, twelve paces past the entrance to the underground unicorn.”

  “Thank you,” Faraday chirped.

  Yep, the AIs were insane. Faraday’s next hypothesis was that their physical hardware must not have paired correctly with their magitech programming. To test that one, he’d have to get a closer look.

  “Can I get one of you to open your control panel so I can examine it?” Faraday asked.

  “I will satisfy that request from the master.” One of the Marys stepped forward, and a panel on her front popped open.

  Faraday climbed up onto a nearby pedestal and waved the maid forward. “Please come here so I can take a closer look.”

  Like a door opening to reveal a whole new world, the panel on the front of the AI showed her insides, and it was simply incredible. It also explained exactly why the magitech acted so strangely. From Faraday’s initial observation, he could tell that their hardware wasn’t the type that would be compatible with magitech. They had their robotic bodies and computer minds, but to pair that with magic required that the hardware was flawless, and a quick assessment told Faraday that technical bugs riddled these servants.

  “Very interesting.” Faraday poked around at various wires inside the AI. He had hypothesized that although Wilfred had a physical body, it was housed somewhere like a computer's mainframe. Faraday hadn’t found that location in FGE yet, but it was on his list of things to do.

  Once he’d found it, he could confirm his other hypothesis, which was that the magitech AI butler simply projected a holographic image of himself when paged at various places inside the mansion. However, it was the magic that made it so he took a physical form, allowing him to do chores and serve.

  However, his assessment of this maid told him that initially, the fairy godmothers had tried to create physical bodies for the AI servants and pair them with magitech. The result was…well, it was what Faraday was looking at all around the Serenity Garden. The servants were crazy, and that might be due to a whole host of factors.

  Faraday assumed that the fairy godmothers figured out their mistake after several dozen trials and realized that the AI had to be “housed” somewhere locally first. Otherwise, it appeared that the magic overwhelmed the technology, making the servant act in untraditional and illogical ways. It made sense to Faraday because the magic to make a robot come alive, as Wilfred did, would have to be vast.

  Furthermore, these servants would be confined to their physical bodies, making them limited in how well they could take care of FGE. Maybe that was why there were so many of them, Faraday observed, regarding the servants. Initially, the fairy godmothers must have thought they’d have a large staff to care for the estate.

  When these AIs didn’t perform correctly, they must have come up with the Wilfred solution, which required only one physical location and potentially a thousand projections of the butler to do the work around the college. It was simply incredible, and Faraday reveled in his findings. This was precisely why he wanted to come to Happily Ever After College. Well, a bonus reason to the one that brought him there.

  The question remained, why were the flawed AIs there in the Serenity Garden and why did they come alive on Tuesday? Sometimes the best way to discover the answer was simply to ask the source. It was the most straightforward and efficient approach, although he wasn’t sure if any of them could answer since they all were insane.

  Faraday stepped back from the maid with the open panel and peered around at the others. “Why is it that you all are here in the Serenity Garden?”

  “The fairy godmothers put us here,” one of the Alfreds answered.

  Faraday flicked his tail. “Right. My question is, why?”

  “Because they didn’t want to get rid of us,” a Mary stated.

  That made logical sense. Of course, the compassionate and loving fairy godmothers wouldn’t want to destroy their creations, even if they were flawed.

  “Why is that you come alive on Tuesdays?” Faraday questioned.

  “That is our day to enjoy the life we were given,” one of the nearby butlers answered. “We were created to serve, and that’s what we desire most. Will Master require me to turn down his bed? If so, I’ll grab the can opener and pliers.”

  There it was, Faraday thought victoriously. The magitech AI servants were very much alive, like Wilfred. The fairy godmothers not only didn’t want to “kil
l” them but thought they should offer them a life. The problem was that this wasn’t the life they wanted because it wasn’t how they were programmed. Without being able to serve, they were unhappy. Moreover, a lack of experiences made it impossible for them to evolve and become sentient, as Faraday thought was Wilfred's case. So the AIs were restless on Tuesdays, quite literally losing their minds.

  Faraday shook his head. “No, thank you.”

  The talking squirrel wasn’t sure how to fix this situation, but he wanted the opportunity. First, he’d have to do some research in FGE. He climbed down the pedestal and made for the Serenity Garden’s exit, but most of the maids and butlers moved to create a tight line, blocking him from leaving.

  “Where is Master going?” one of the Alfreds asked.

  “I was going back to FGE to look into something,” Faraday answered.

  “Master can’t leave,” a maid said flatly. “We have waited a long time to be of service.”

  “I’ll come back,” Faraday stated. “I need to—”

  “Master is free to roam through the Serenity Garden,” a butler informed him. “But under no circumstances will he leave now that he has finally joined us.”

  Faraday turned in a circle, noting that the other AI servants had moved into various spots, blocking any possible place for Faraday to escape.

  Chapter Fifty-One

  When the elevators opened on the top floor of Rose Industries, a tall red-haired man with the most freckles Paris had ever seen greeted them. Christine had a fair amount of freckles as a ginger, but she wore them well, almost like jewelry or an accessory of sorts.

  This guy looked like he was a handful of freckles away from having a complete tan. His red hair was bright and almost made him appear alien-like, as did his slanted dark green eyes.

  “Hello and welcome to Rose Industries,” the man greeted them as they exited the compartment. He extended a long-fingered hand to Paris. “I’m the CFO, Bryce Tyler.”