Brother to Dragons, Companion to Owls - Jane Lindskold [18]
“Thanks.” Abalone rolls onto her back. “Do you think you can do it, Sarah?”
I ignore the tears she’s wiping away and settle for nodding my agreement.
We part that dawn, quiet and reflective, promising to meet Professor Isabella when the deed is done. In the Jungle, I worry that my tension will keep me awake, but I fall asleep as soon as I have climbed into my hammock. In my dreams, I drive down streets of the deserted financial district. My car mirror shows me a face with golden hair and bright emerald eyes.
The next evening, we go through the secret subway and end in the locked rest room. This time I change my clothing as well, putting on a tidy maple jumpsuit. Abalone fits an ash blond wig over my hair.
“Your eyes will do—no one will believe that color is natural anyhow, but combined with cream-colored hair you are just too memorable.” She shrugs. “When you first came to the Jungle, I kept waiting for it to grow out, but it’s real, isn’t it?”
Watching the stranger in the mirror move, I nod.
“Strange color,” Abalone muses, pulling on her own nondescript outfit. “I’ve only seen it on palomino horses and cats. Cream and jade.”
We head out, Betwixt and Between in the neat pseudosuede bag swinging from my shoulder.
The damp sidewalks seem to stick to my shoes as we walk. Once again, I am following Abalone; this time I know what we are seeking. I don’t need Abalone’s slight nod to tell me when we have reached the target.
A sign with a painted ideogram tells me that we have reached where the car is parked in a small garage. The first test of Abalone’s skill will be here. Without a glance at her, I turn, fumble in my bag past Betwixt and Between, and find the brown Moroccan leather wallet Abalone had given me. Nervously, I pull a plastic slip out and slide it into the guard door. It swallows it and then the door slides open. On the other side, I retrieve it.
A fruity male voice says, “Thank you, Ms. Rena.”
As the door closes behind me, the aloneness that had left when Abalone picked me up from the street rushes back, chilling me. I know I must move quickly, yet I turn slowly as if wading in icy slush up to my knees.
It waits for me: sleek, predatory, silver and black, seeming to drift on parking jets. I wade toward it and am sliding the key strip into the lock when I come up short. A woman is already in the car—her gaze meets mine and when I see pale green jade the picture falls into place. The woman is me.
I know this, but my hand still is shaking nearly too hard to match the flimsy slip and its slot. I manage and step in, feeling the car bob on its jets.
The dashboard is different than the one I have been so patiently studying. I cannot find the start button; I cannot find the acceleration shift; I cannot find the brake. Only the steering crescent is familiar.
When I place my hand on the soft curve, perception chimes. The brake is beneath my right foot as Abalone had promised. Now I find the start button—a few inches higher than I had been taught. The acceleration shaft is snapped into a recess right of the driver’s seat. I find the release tab, press it, and the shaft rises beneath my right hand.
Abalone has written a navigation program and I drop this into the consol. The silver-and-black shark bites and I can drop, shaking, into the padded seat while the program reels us to our destination. Outside, rain on the tinted windows stars the streetlights and headlights, beginning to shoot as the car picks up speed.
When the car idles to a stop in the driveway of a used vehicle lot, I am enough in control to steer us to a fairly graceful park outside the sales office door. The shark has barely fallen quiet when the office door slams up and a small Korean man emerges.
Touching my throat, I hand him the note Abalone has written for me. He takes it, wrinkling his brow as he reads. I see confusion, amazement, and, finally,