Brother to Dragons, Companion to Owls - Jane Lindskold [72]
“You told me that after Dylan died, the Institute tried to find me, only to learn that I’d been discharged from the Home.”
“Yeah, that’s right. I remember Dr. Aldrich’s cursing and swearing when he heard. For a while there, he thought we’d have to use the third sibling. I got the impression that he knew where to find her, but that she wasn’t as good.”
“Fine. But, Jersey, the doctor who insisted on discharging me from the Home was Dr. Haas.”
“You sure?”
“Could I make a mistake on something like that?”
Jersey shakes his head. “No, I guess not.”
An odd look comes over his face. “Time to work, Sarey.”
He reached into a chest by his chair and pulls out a small rectangular box of black plastic.
“This is a key box,” he says, handing it to me. “We have the box, but not the key. We want you to tell us what it is.”
Accepting the key box, I feel it carefully, finding that the four corners each depress slightly; one bears an almost imperceptible dimple.
A faint sigh of anticipation comes to me as I touch the corners. Glancing up at Jersey, I see his expression has not changed. The sigh then…I focus again on the black plastic box.
“There is an order in which these need to be pressed,” I say, more to myself than to Jersey. “If I get it wrong…”
I stretch my senses; the feeling from the box is glee? And sorrow? Odd. Making as if I am about to press a sequence, I clearly mark the emotions, find them shaping into words.
“This is the end…” the box hums.
I remember Abalone and the safeguards on her tappety-tap.
“This thing destroys itself if the sequence is done wrong!”
“Yeah,” Jersey says. “That’s why we need to be kinda careful—it won’t take any conventional tampering and the gal who knew the code series isn’t exactly in a position to tell.”
“Oh.” I don’t like the image that flickers into my mind. “Let me see if I can get it to tell me. There’s one problem.”
“What?”
“I think it kinda wants to blow up.”
“A kamikaze key box? Give it up, Sarey.”
“No, Jersey, things are, but I read them in part because of their associations. That’s why some things are null to me.”
“So if the person who associated with this didn’t give a shit about dying, then this might not either?”
“Yeah.” I bite my lip. “I never thought that much about it before, but that feels right.”
“Do what you can”—he leans back—“and be careful.”
Again, I concentrate, shutting out Jersey, the room, everything except the key box. This I hold in my left hand, positioned so that the dimple is in the upper left-hand corner. When I feel again the presence of the humming, I lower a finger toward the upper left corner. The humming does not change, even when I abort the move at the last second.
Disgruntled, I sit back. If it doesn’t care, how can I fool it into telling me? Most inanimates do have an ego of sorts; this, though, doesn’t seem to. Or does it? When I first tried, it did seem to react; therefore, this behavior now must be a feint.
Tossing it onto the coffee table, I grin at Jersey.
“Got it?” he asks excitedly.
“Nope”—I smile, trying to radiate indifference—“and I don’t even care to try and find out.”
Is it my imagination or do I hear a faint squeal of indignation from the box? Betwixt and Between tilt their heads, hearing it also. With an effort, I ignore the box, putting all my energy into projecting my view of our consensus universe, trying to force Jersey to see things the way I do.
When he rubs his eyes and stares up at where Athena is chasing a moth around a ceiling light fixture, I know I have won.
“What the hell…” he mutters, then, “You’re doing this, aren’t you, Sarey? Why? Why aren’t you working on deciphering the box?”
“I have my reasons.” I smile. “Who cares about a silly code anyhow? Jersey, we can have anything here. Why are we sitting snacking in a living room?”
Jersey looks shocked and even Betwixt and Between look from the bowl of corn chips they are decimating. But the whine from the box is so clear that even Jersey hears it.
“You may have something,” he says a bit stiffly, noticing apparently for