Worldweavers: Cybermage

by Alma Alexander

  He glared at her. “You said you had a plan,” he said. “When were you planning on doing this insane thing?”

  “No time like the present,” Thea said with a small smile.

  “You mean, before you’ve had a chance to sleep on it and realize just how wildly weird and unpardonable this is,” Terry said. “If it had been one of us, Thea…but the Walrus? Kristin? Why on earth would you take her seriously?”

  “Because she isn’t tainted by knowing what we all think we know. Because what she said came out of a fresh look at the situation, by someone who had absolutely no agenda. Because it makes sense.”

  “Promise me one thing,” Terry said, after a beat. “If something goes seriously wrong, promise me you won’t try anything really stupid. We pull out.”

  “Sure,” Thea said, with a grin, pushing up her sleeve and activating her keypad.

  “I mean that, Thea,” Terry said, craning his neck to see what she was typing. “You’re already doing something rash. You don’t even know where you’re…”

  The softly glowing walls of the Nexus room vanished, and they found themselves standing in what at first appeared to be utter darkness. But as their eyes adjusted to the meager light creeping in through a window with drawn blinds, the shadows around them began to assume familiar shapes—a desk, a chair, a computer monitor, a bank of filing cabinets.

  “…going,” Terry finished in a whisper. “Where are we?”

  “This is Humphrey’s office,” Thea hissed. “I’ve been here once before, during the spellspam, but that was a while ago, and it was in daylight. Hang on a sec, let me remember the layout…”

  She shuffled forward past what she thought was the corner of the desk and smothered an exclamation as she blundered into it.

  “I don’t suppose you thought to bring a flashlight with you,” Terry whispered. “We need some light—Oh.”

  Thea had reached the window and opened up the Venetian blinds. Reflected light glinted dully off the surface of the monitor and the glass doors of a couple of cabinets against the far wall.

  “Okay, now what?” Terry said. “The safe isn’t in this room.”

  “So do you know where it is?”

  “Are you kidding me? My uncle might run the place, but just because they handed me the Nexus doesn’t mean they let me run loose in here.”

  “Okay, so we have to do it the hard way,” Thea said.

  Terry rolled his eyes. “I thought you had a plan.”

  “I do. Once I get the cube.”

  “Oh, great,” he said, peering at where she stood by the window, her left wrist tilted so that the screen of the keypad caught all the available light. “What are you doing?”

  “Asking a few questions. There’s a map.”

  “Of what?”

  “Of this place. Where the safe is. Except it looks really weird. Like it’s in several dimensions beyond the physical.”

  “Not all of this place exists in the here and now, Thea,” Terry said. “Didn’t your father ever tell you about it? And are you still sure that someone else could steal that stupid cube, just like that? Just say when you’re ready to quit. I’m quite happy to go back to the school without tripping any of the FBM’s alarms.”

  “You’re starting to sound an awful lot like Ben,” Thea said. “Is that the only reason you came along? To be able to tell me ‘I told you so, let’s go home now’?”

  “But it isn’t…” He heaved a deep sigh. “Okay. You’ve got two problems. I’m relatively certain that getting to the safe is only done via a single approach corridor, not from just any arbitrary office. Not even Humphrey’s or Uncle Kevin’s. You need to find the entry point where the maze that leads to the safe actually begins. And just to make it more fun, there is security in this building.”

  “We can duck the muscle,” Thea said.

  “It’s not just…ordinary muscle,” Terry said tightly, and then tossed his head in frustration. “I can’t,” he said. “It isn’t…”

  “Okay, I get it. There are special security requirements, so the thugs come with special equipment. I’ll take that into account. What’s the second problem?”

  “What you just said.” Terry nodded at her keypad. “Does that thing tell you which dimension you need to chase the safe down in?”

  “I’ll figure that out when I get there,” Thea said. “Come on.”

  He reached out and grabbed her right wrist, the one without the keypad, as she sidled past him. “Do you really know what you’re doing? Once you get out into that corridor, there’s no turning back. There’s nothing you need to prove, Thea, not to anyone.”

  Thea jerked her arm out of his grasp with a violence that startled them both, making Terry step back and into the desk. In an attempt to keep his balance, he dislodged an in-box and upended its contents onto the floor. Terry started to reach over for the fallen papers, but suddenly realized that Thea’s tense, rigid shoulders were quivering with what seemed to be stifled sobs.

  “What is it?” he said quietly. “This isn’t really about Humphrey May at all, is it?”

  “I will not be responsible for that again,” Thea said, and her voice was strange, muffled. “I will not. I can’t do it. The Alphiri already think themselves cheated because of Diego, and what I had to do to Diego. If anything happens to Tesla, if Tesla falls into the hands of the Alphiri—if they get that cube—I know what they can do to him. I know, because I’ve already done it. I locked Diego away, alone, into a world from which he can never escape.” She gasped, took a deep breath. “They’ll blame me…”

  It was a different they this time. Not the Alphiri. Her own kind.

  Diego de los Reyes. The wraith-boy who had been like her. The one whom she had locked into an eternity of lonely isolation, because allowing him to be free would have been impossible.

  “Nobody blames you for that,” Terry said after a beat, his voice very low. “And this is not the same thing at all.”

  She shook her head, a small, despairing motion. “It is,” she whispered. “It’s worse.”

  “Tesla locked himself into that cube,” Terry said gently. “Only he knows why. You didn’t do it.”

  “But he lived,” Thea said. “If anything happened…Tesla would be completely aware of what was going on. At least, before…”

  “You were already dealing with a ghost,” Terry said.

  Thea flinched.

  “I’m sorry,” Terry said. “I was there—at least, I was on the outside looking in. I should have seen this coming. I could have helped. It isn’t right that you took all this on yourself. Even Humphrey was more there for you than I was, and we all know what you think of him these days.”

  It was an apology, but it was also a clear attempt to lighten the mood, and Thea managed a smile, reaching up to knuckle at her eyes.

  “Okay now?” Terry said quietly. “You seen enough? I think the FBM can manage to keep Tesla from falling into the wrong hands, Thea. That’s what they’re here for.”

  “What did you knock over?” Thea said, taking a step sideways and trying to peer at the pile of paper on the floor behind Terry’s back. “We’d better pick up.”

  They both dropped into a crouch and reached for the same piece of paper; their hands brushed in the dark, and Thea felt herself blush. She let Terry grab the offending page and reached instead for what seemed to be a pile of memos held together by a large paper clip, and, underneath them, a manila envelope with something scrawled on it in marker pen.

  “He hasn’t been to the office in a while. There sure is a heap of paperwork to catch up on when he gets—oh my God.”

  Terry’s head snapped up. He looked first toward the closed door, then back to Thea. “What? What is it?”

  Thea, still staring at the envelope in her hand, handed it over to Terry. “Look,” she whispered urgently.

  Humphrey May, c/o Kay Otis.

  The names were big and black and unmistakable on the envelope. Terry stared at it, and then at the inbox
he had disturbed.

  “Yes?” he said, squinting at the envelope and then looking back at Thea with a blank expression. “I think I remember Rafe mention a Kay back at the professor’s office. Humphrey said something about Kay being his other assistant. What are you—”

  “No,” Thea said, pointing to the second name. “Look.”

  Terry squinted at the name Thea’s finger rested on. “Kay Otis. Okay.”

  “Rafe said ‘Kay.’ Just Kay. Just the first name.”

  “I don’t…” Terry began again, perplexed.

  Thea sighed. “Say it fast three times.”

  “Kay Otis, Kay Otis, Kay Otis,” Terry said, giving her a strange look.

  “Kayotis,” Thea said. “Kayotis. Coyote.”

  “Your Trickster Coyote? In this place? Come on, that’s stretching! They do background checks, you know.”

  “When he was Cary Wiley he didn’t have any problems getting the tutor’s job with Professor de los Reyes,” Thea said.

  “But that doesn’t mean—wait, where are you going?”

  Thea had gotten to her feet again, and was tapping at her wrist pad. “Terry, I was right. This settles it. Now I know I must go in and get that cube.”

  “Thea, wait! Wait! This is nuts. You can’t possibly be sure—it’s just a name.”

  “And maybe I’m wrong. And it’s just a name. And nothing is lost.” Thea whipped around to face him. “But if I’m not wrong. And there’s a great gaping hole right here in the midst of the most secure place in the world. And the Alphiri get what they wanted to have—access to magic. And this time it would be seriously heavyweight magic. If I let it happen, then not only do I have to live with the idea of Tesla being owned by the Alphiri, but everything I have done to Diego will have been wasted. I’m sorry, Terry. I may be wrong, but I can’t risk being right and doing nothing.”

  “You don’t think that anyone would have noticed that name?”

  “Why would they? It’s just a name, like you said.” She paused, lifting her head as though she was trying to catch a scent. “And if Larry de los Reyes was here, he’d probably tell you that he could smell him.”

  “Can you?”

  Thea shook her head. “I don’t work that way. But I’ve always been able to recognize him—now her—and I can sense that he’s been here.”

  “Because you’ve told yourself that Kay Otis is Coyote,” Terry said.

  “Fine, don’t believe me,” Thea snapped. “I’m still going.”

  She looked down at her wrist, tapped something on her keypad, and then stepped up to the office door and laid her hand on the handle.

  “Where are we going?” Terry said.

  She managed a small smile. “To rescue a wizard. Come on.”

  The door squeaked a little as Thea drew back the deadbolt from the inside and eased it open. She stuck her head out into the well-lit corridor with a degree of carelessness that made Terry suck in his breath.

  “Will you be careful?” he hissed.

  “I’ve specified empty corridors,” Thea said, lifting her keypad-braceletted arm. “There’s nobody out there. It’s okay.”

  “Don’t take that for granted,” Terry said. “I told you, this place—”

  “Yes, I got it, I got it. I didn’t vaporize everyone in this building so that we can stroll down the corridor. But at the very least, even if we do meet someone, we won’t be seen. We’ll probably be able to notice anyone who’s coming long before they get wind of us.”

  “Don’t get cocky,” Terry said. “That’s all I’m saying. You have no idea what you’re up against.”

  “You keep saying that. Do you see anyone about?”

  He followed her into the corridor, looking both ways. The place was plush—polished wooden doors with gleaming brass handles opened off a wide passage painted a serene shade of forest green and floored with deep-pile carpet. There were no overhead lights, but frequent wall sconces left no place for shadows to linger. The eerily empty corridor curved into a gentle arc on their left, and stretched out straight to their right until it reached what looked like an elevator bank at the far end.

  “Which way?” Terry said.

  “Down,” said Thea, after the slightest of hesitations.

  Terry heard it, and instantly latched on to it. “You sure? And you aren’t thinking of climbing into an elevator, are you? The first rule of breaking and entering is never to get into an elevator.”

  “‘In case of fire, use the stairs,’” Thea said.

  “There may not be stairs leading to where you want to—”

  “Then we’ll jump into that chasm when we get to it,” Thea said impatiently. “Come on, already.”

  She was a couple of steps down the corridor before she realized that he was not following; turning, she saw him still hesitating by the door of the office they had just left, staring at it with an expression of dismay.

  “Now what?” She followed the direction of his gaze and finally realized that he was looking at the shiny brass doorknob of the door to Humphrey’s office, which was still ajar. Thea realized, belatedly, what he had just thought of.

  “This,” Terry said, “is fingerprint heaven. And if you get what you came for, this place will raise an unholy hue and cry. They will start with the obvious—and we left a trail in that office, Thea, as blatant as we could short of sticking around and confessing.”

  “Shh,” Thea said. “Let me think for a sec.”

  After a moment she stuck her right hand into her pocket and pushed the door open a little farther so that she had an unimpeded view into the room. Then she shrugged her sleeve off the keypad, and typed a few words.

  All traces of us. Weave.

  Terry, craning his neck from behind her, was trying to read over her shoulder. “What’s that supposed to…”

  Thea glanced at him briefly, indicating the office with a jerk of her chin. “Watch.”

  He turned back to the office, and sucked in his breath. In the dark room, still only barely lighted by the trace of outside lights, a glimmering golden trail had appeared—two sets of footprints on the carpet, a scrape of gold-glint on the side of the desk where Thea had brushed against it, gold on the handle of the Venetian blinds she had turned to let in whatever light she could, spatters of gold on papers in the inbox. Thea waited a few breaths to make sure that everything had showed, and then reached into the office with her hand.

  The gold streamed toward her fingers in ribbons, spooling off whatever surface it had managed to settle on. Thea wrapped her right hand around the ribbons of light, braiding them into a thin golden strand and coiling the strand in her palm as she wove, reaching for every speck of it that showed, from desktop, window, floor, doorknob. When she was done, she glanced at the supple length of bright gold braid in her hand and then closed her fingers around it and held it out to Terry.

  “No fingerprints,” she said. “Here. You take this.”

  “That was cool.”

  “That was the first thing I really figured out I could do,” Thea said. “Back with Cheveyo.”

  “Yeah, but…are you going to be sweeping up each footstep as we make it? That would be a royal pain.” He was staring past the gold thread in his palm at the traces of gold footsteps that had also glimmered into existence just outside the office door, on the deep plush carpet of the corridor.

  Thea rubbed her temples. “We’d need to walk on air for that not to show,” she said morosely. And then her head lifted sharply, as though something wholly unexpected had suddenly occurred to her.

  “What?” Terry said, stuffing the gold braid into his pocket.

  “What size shoes do you wear?” Thea asked.

  “Eh? Ten, but what…?”

  “Lift up your foot,” she instructed.

  Mystified, he obeyed, lifting his right foot off the ground. A gold size-ten footprint glowed where it had just been.

  Thea hesitated before she typed the next thing into her keypad, then reached out with her hand
, gathering the stuff she needed into her fingers.

  Size ten air cushion under right shoe.

  “Other foot. Be careful when you put your weight on the right.”

  He had wobbled a little even as she said that. “Weird,” he said. “What are you doing?”

  Size ten air cushion under left shoe.

  “Try walking.”

  Terry took a couple of wobbly steps. “Feels like gel soles, actually,” he said. “What did you—Hey. Hey! I’m not leaving tracks anymore!”

  Thea looked at him, her expression equal parts astonishment and exultation. “I just wove air,” she said. “You’re wearing air overshoes—you’re literally walking on air. Their air, the air that was already here. Nothing that we brought in. We’ll be touching nothing now—leaving no trail. Why are you looking at me like that?”

  “He was right,” Terry said slowly. “Humphrey.”

  Thea had turned to close the door of the office, hand muffled in her pocket again. “Right about what?”

  “You,” Terry said, and then hesitated. “Is it safe to talk?”

  Thea, in the process of creating her own air-shoes, paused in her typing, glanced up at him, and typed in a few extra words. “Is now,” she said. “I probably should have done that first, before I did anything else at all.”

  “You are an Elemental,” Terry said, with a grin so wide that it threatened to split his face in half. “For real. You just wove air. Not light. Not color. Air. You change the world around you. No wonder you ‘know’ that nobody will see us, even if we do run into an entire company of security—you’re hiding behind air. This is wild. You know, I’m beginning to think you can actually do this crazy thing—come right into the FBM headquarters and walk out again with nobody knowing you were here.”

  “Beginning to?” Thea said, grinning.

  “I still think you’re overreacting. Sometimes a Miss Otis is just a Miss Otis.”

  Thea’s grin disappeared. “Nuh-uh,” she said. “I’m not wrong about that. Come on, let’s go.”

  Careful now, they pushed open the doorway to the stairwell with a cushion of air between Thea’s hand and the surface of anything she reached out to touch. They started down what seemed to be an unremarkable flight of stairs, bare concrete with institutional metal railings on the side. At first glance, Thea saw nothing strange about the middle of the stairwell except that it seemed to go down an awfully long way, but she kept glancing over the railing, frowning.