Deadly Designs

by Dale Mayer

  Yes.

  “Then where is it?”

  It doesn’t know.

  “Is it in this dimension?”

  No.

  “Is it in Storey’s dimension?”

  No.

  The questioning continued until they determined that the stylus was in the same dimension as Storey, but not close to her. Close enough for her to communicate with it, but not close enough for her to see or touch it.

  Eric ran his fingers through his hair. “Well, thank heavens for that. I was afraid she’d lost the stylus somehow. How long before their separation affects Storey’s health?”

  Paxton raised his gaze to Eric’s. He frowned, intense worry developing in his eyes. “I don’t know. That’s why we didn’t take it from her when she was first here, remember.”

  Eric straightened. “I thought I saw the Councilman with a stylus in his hand. I wondered at the time…but there’s been so much going on, I didn’t think about it any further.”

  “My stylus said it isn’t here, remember.” Paxton watched him. “But they are valuable. Priceless in fact.” His voice lowered. “If he has one, I need to see it.”

  Eric’s mind locked onto the memory of Storey creating a dummy stylus. Could that possibly be the one his father had? Really?

  Storey might have let down her guard in the celebratory atmosphere after the battle, but she was pretty cagey. She’d have kept a firm grip on her real stylus.

  He closed his eyes briefly, and bit back the curses that threatened to pour from his lips. Another side effect of having Storey in his life, no matter how briefly. People in his dimension didn’t swear. It was considered a grave insult and showed a complete lack of respect to the person being spoken to. Unfortunately swearing appeared to be a natural part of her upbringing.

  “Eric? What’s the matter?”

  Eric turned to look at his mentor. Paxton had been horrified by Storey initially, but had come to respect what she’d been capable of doing. After all, it was because of her they’d won the war. So fast and so efficiently, it had been a non-war, really.

  “I’m remembering something Storey did when we were on her side of the veil. Using the stylus she created a copy of it, hoping the duplicate might fool the Torans who’d planned to separate it from her.”

  Paxton’s mouth dropped then slowly closed as he processed the concept. “Did it work?”

  Not knowing exactly what ‘it’ referred to here, Eric clarified. “The new stylus appeared to be identical but when she tested it, it didn’t work. I’m not sure if we ever asked the stylus why, but we assumed at the time it was a dud. Although Storey wondered if it didn’t work because it had no souls bound to it.”

  Paxton’s face shifted and changed with understanding, finally coming to rest with a reflection of wonder. “How could she even think to try such a thing?”

  Eric grinned. “That’s the joy of Storey. The way she thinks and processes problems and solutions is so different from us. It makes her ideas seem radical.”

  Paxton walked over to where the Councilman had been sitting. “He can’t have a real one because your stylus said it wasn’t here. Therefore he has to have the fake one, but thinks he has the real one.”

  The two stared at each other, letting the issues settle in.

  Eric groaned. “Do we know if we can send messages back? We need to find her.”

  “I don’t think so, because she hasn’t got her stylus to receive the messages.” Paxton pulled gently on his long white beard. “Although we can’t underestimate her.”

  “Let’s try to reach her anyway.” Doing anything was better than doing nothing.

  Paxton grabbed his writing tablet. “And let’s see if we can find that empty stylus.”

  Chapter 3

  Storey sat back on the dirt and wondered what else she could do. She needed her stylus. Holding her zipper pull, she started scratching again. “Stylus, can you come to me?”

  Her hand jerked.

  No.

  Storey gasped in joy. It was here! And responding to her. Excitedly she tried to marshal her thoughts and figure out her next questions in some kind of coherent manner. “Stylus, are you being held by another person?”

  No.

  “Stylus, are you close to me?”

  Yes.

  Yes. But not in this prison as far as she could tell. So the odds were good her captors, whoever they were, had her stylus and paper. “Stylus, has anyone attempted to use you yet?”

  No.

  “Do the people who separated you from me understand what you are?”

  No answer.

  Of course there was no answer. How would the stylus know what her captors understood and what they didn’t? This wasn’t getting her anywhere.

  She also needed a washroom and couldn’t see any such facility here. In fact, she couldn’t see much at all. The lighting was unique. Cool, but definitely weird. Still, it helped to keep back the chilling fear that the darkness let in so easily.

  Now if only she could get the hell away from here before her captors returned. On the heels of that thought came the next pressing fear.

  What if no one ever came?

  *

  With Paxton continuing to send messages to Storey’s stylus, and hopefully to Storey herself, Eric decided to double check she hadn’t made it home first, then gotten into trouble. Just to make sure. With Paxton guarding the lab, Eric crossed into Storey’s dimension.

  Opening his eyes on the other side, he realized the codex had sent him back to Bankhead mine where Storey had first crossed into his world. He retraced the well-traveled route back to Storey’s two-story clapboard house. Approaching from behind, he checked out the back of her house. He couldn’t see any sign that the Louers had ever been here. Had it only been days since they’d tried to tear through the dimensional fabric beside Storey’s portal?

  The lights were off in the house. Could he port into her bedroom? His codex had taken him there several times, so in theory, it should have the destination in its memory banks.

  Punching the instructions into his wrist unit, he then waited for the black mist to wrap around his legs and transport him to her room. Thankfully, the darkness covered his actions in case any of the neighbors spotted him outside. The smoke dissipated quickly. Relieved, he noted the same childish posters on the walls and everything else that made a typical Storey looking bedroom. In fact, it didn’t look any different than when he’d last seen it.

  Not true. There was one big difference. Storey wasn’t in it.

  Hearing noises in the hallway, he quickly stuffed himself into her closet, overwhelmingly packed with years’ worth of clothes and stuffed animals. And sketchbooks. Would any have her sketched portals? They’d come in handy to rescue her.

  The sounds approached. Damn. He hoped it was Storey.

  Just then the door pushed open and heavy footsteps sounded. A male voice muttered, “Damn lights. When are they going to come back on?”

  “Storey? Are you in here?” The footsteps crossed the floor to Storey’s bedside. “There’s no sign of her.”

  “Are you sure? Oh dear.” Storey’s mother, at least he thought it was Storey’s mother, stood just inside the room, enough that she could see the empty bed herself. “Where could she be?”

  “Storey has never done anything rebellious up to now so maybe we’re overreacting. What’s the chance she’s in the den like we found her last night?”

  “Oh, I hope so. She’s probably fallen asleep again with her drawings.”

  The lighter footsteps rapidly exited the room and headed down the hallway. The heavier footsteps followed.

  Eric had his answer. Storey never made it home.

  Damn. That meant she’d gone missing from his dimension.

  *

  Storey’s need to find a washroom had gone way beyond bad. When she had no other options, she had no qualms about going outdoors. But this prison was hardly outdoors. It also didn’t offer toilet paper. She frowned and dug
through her pockets. Tissues, three of them, lay crumpled at the bottom of her hoodie pocket. So that problem was solved, at least this time, but location wise, no. Nor did she have any idea if she was being watched. That possibility creeped her out.

  She got up and wandered the large space for what had to be the umpteenth time. The light went on and off with her voice. She’d tried to order food and water the same way, with no luck. That there were no bodies gave her hope that she hadn’t been dumped and left forever. Still, how long were they planning on leaving her here?

  “Damn, why is there no door? There has to be a way in and out.” The voice-activated lights meant someone had been here at one time. The concept of a door wasn’t too outrageous.

  “If there is a door, where the hell is it and why won’t it open on command?” Or had it? Could it have opened silently? She might have missed it in the shadows. Anything was possible. With her hand in constant contact of the wall, Storey circled the room until she came to an open space. A doorway.

  Was it a trap? It didn’t really matter. She had to try to escape. With a deep breath, she snuck up to the doorway…then bolted through.

  But to what?

  More darkness. She couldn’t see a thing. A round, metal, hand-sized button sat barely visible on the wall beside her. She slapped her hand on it. The door closed softly behind her.

  Weird. Opened by voice and by hand. Double weird.

  “Thank heavens for that,” she muttered. “Now if only there were lights on.”

  Instantly the space lit up.

  “Right. Voice controlled.” Storey felt like an idiot. But a quick scan showed this smaller anteroom was also empty. The only sign of another possible door was a second metal button on the far wall. Checking that there was nothing usable in the room she dashed to the button and slapped it. “Lights off,” she added, not wanting anyone who might be on the other side to see her.

  Although if they lived in this type of natural darkness, their vision had to be better than hers.

  The door opened, smoother this time, and quieter. The doors were some sort of stone or compressed sand. Adobe maybe. She didn’t know. It was definitely odd.

  The next room had more lights, giving her a dim view of odd shapes.

  Still, a pervading silence filled the air. Did no one speak? No music? Television? Thinking back, even the Louers she’d seen in the attack had been silent.

  Yet the lights were voice, sound or movement activated.

  Odd.

  Taking a chance, she whispered, “Lights on half.”

  The lights pulsed on, dimmer this time, like fluorescent bulbs; chunks of luminosity lined the corner of the ceiling and shone on another large and empty room. So where the hell was everyone? Not that she wanted to see them, but she wanted to avoid a room full of them.

  “Stylus, where are you?”

  Not like it could answer her. Yet, she felt it. Sensed it trying to speak with her. A quick look around showed no stylus or paper. Everything appeared to have been formed from the same odd rock.

  She could use her zipper pull again, if she had no other options. She fished it out of her pocket and held it tightly. As a weapon it wasn’t much either.

  Carefully, she slipped along the closest wall, willing it to lead her to safety…and to her stylus.

  How was it she hadn’t become sick without it? Or was it still close enough that she hadn’t experienced any harm yet?

  The wall went on forever. What an odd formation. Molded lumps rose from the middle of the floor as if they were furniture of some sort. Maybe this was a meeting area.

  She tried to stay clear of the lumps. There’s no way she wanted a repeat of her experience in Paxton’s apartment where the furniture had shifted in its attempt to fit whatever sized person it needed to. Who knew what the furniture here could do? It might be made of natural materials, but that didn’t stop things from doing weird stuff.

  From the smell and the darkness, she’d assumed she was in the Louers’ dimension. And if the Louers had already migrated to the new dimension, this one could theoretically, be empty. She brightened at that thought. Except they hadn’t had time to migrate a whole species to the new dimension she’d created for them. Then again, there were only thousands of people here, not billions like in her dimension.

  She couldn’t imagine trying to move her people to another place. War would break out on a half dozen fronts. The first country across would probably claim the entire dimension as their own.

  What a disaster that would be. How long had it been since she’d created that dimension? Hours or days. Had to be days. In the murky shadows, time had so little meaning. There were no sunrises or sunsets, no moon phases, nothing.

  Storey closed her eyes and concentrated hard on connecting with the stylus. She could almost feel it. It was so vague, just a sensation really. She slid along the wall for another good fifty feet.

  Where the hell was she?

  *

  Eric closed his eyes as the footsteps disappeared back downstairs. If those had been Storey’s parents – a big maybe, because he remembered her saying she hadn’t seen her father in over ten years – then something had gone majorly wrong in her dimension.

  Vaguely he remembered her saying something about her family and how messed up things had become. If that man wasn’t her father, then who was he and did it matter? Eric didn’t want to deal with an angry male. Humans were more aggressive than his people. The Torans had evolved differently, choosing to use their psychic energy more, and had developed skills that were far superior to individuals in Storey’s world. But his people weren’t fighters.

  Humans, on the other hand, had developed into warmongers. That’s why the possibility of war on his side had stunned his people. They’d had no exposure to such violence. Only Storey hadn’t been paralyzed. And she’d saved them all.

  Now she was the one in need of saving.

  Chapter 4

  Storey crept around another corner. Her mouth was so dry with fear she could barely swallow.

  The silence unnerved her just as badly as if she heard the sound of footsteps.

  Either this place was deserted or the Louers were professionals at staying quiet.

  What about children? Did they have any here? Or were they in a different location? Not that she’d expect children close to a prison. Then again, she had so little information she couldn’t afford to make any assumption. For all she knew, the Louers were herding her in a specific direction – like a trap.

  Taking a deep breath, she rounded another corner, her back sliding along the wall. More blank walls faced her. She’d do a lot for a map of this place. Actually she’d do damn near anything to get her hands on her stylus.

  A horrible sense of loss built deep inside her. The feeling so strong she had to consider that the stylus might be moving further away from her. It felt that bad. The nausea in her stomach made her want to heave. Yet, she didn’t dare think that way. She had to find it. And fast.

  Then the truth hit her, freezing her body in place. Shit.

  The stylus hadn’t moved – she had. In the wrong direction.

  Crap. She really didn’t want to go back, but the stylus was her only hope of getting out of here. There was no choice. How could she pinpoint its location? Especially when the stylus couldn’t tell her.

  Either way the problem wasn’t going to solve itself while she sat paralyzed with indecision.

  Damn it.

  She’d been communicating with the stylus somewhat. At least enough to kinda feel the answers to her questions. Could she do a hot and cold thing, like that children’s game?

  But she’d have to get a lot closer to test the idea out.

  Groaning silently, she headed back to the entrance of the room she’d woken up in. The journey only took a few minutes. Her body didn’t care; her heart had started pounding with the first step and her palms had to be leaving sweat marks. She could probably turn the lights on, but that didn’t guarantee success at t
his point and would alert everyone as to where she was. Not that any Louers had come after her yet. And that didn’t make sense either.

  That just brought her back to the whole trap concept. Not her favorite one to dwell on.

  The only sound was her heavy, rasping breaths. Damn. She’d never hear the stylus with that interfering. She took a deep breath and released it. Then did it again. That helped.

  A bit.

  At the entrance to the huge room, she peered around the doorway. Her eyes adjusted slowly to the deep darkness.

  Still empty and open. That wouldn’t be the most brilliant engineering she’d seen. Then again, just how far behind were these people? And yes, they were people, as much as it was hard to claim them as a relative of her own kind. The Torans, Eric’s people, had developed more psychically than her own. Whatever that meant. It’s not like she’d seen any examples of that.

  Her people had developed differently as well. So in theory, the Louers could be more intelligent, more advanced than either humans or Torans. Or they could be the very opposite. Their living hadn’t been the easiest but they had survived. Survival meant development of some kind.

  She slipped past the door and headed the way she should have when she first escaped.

  “Stylus, are you there?”

  The faint sensation was a warm buzz in her head.

  Thank God for that.

  More confident now, she picked up the pace, trying to follow the warmth or coolness of the buzz as a directional signal. It grew stronger and stronger. A comforting sense of companionship. She wasn’t alone. The stylus was here. Waiting for her.

  Moving as fast as she could in the darkness, she passed a series of doors. Probably doors as each had a silver disc or button. She could only hope they didn’t have any Torans or humans locked up in any of those rooms or she’d have to try and get them out, too. Damn, she needed her stylus.

  Tuning into the buzzing noise in her head, she blocked everything else out and focused on following it.

  Several long minutes later, she had no idea where she was; so focused on making the buzzing in her head grow, she’d followed the wall to what appeared to the be the end of the road. Another wall stood in front of her.