Out of the Black - Lee Doty [25]
Then something changed, like the shiver of a predator slipping silently into the water- the school knew, even if the individual fish could see nothing. Around her, the crowd still smiled and danced, the music still thrummed, but some of the eyes that floated around her were set a little harder, some of the smiles seemed tighter, colder. Some of them felt it too: something hungry was in here with them.
She was being watched- eyes from the darkness bored in, singling her out. The friendly, energetic music that still surrounded her seemed to acquire the character of a suspense video soundtrack. The broken, sinister tones were still hidden a few layers down, but emerging like a slowly drawn knife.
Jin felt suddenly exposed, one side of an open doorway with light coming from behind her and an impenetrable darkness across the threshold. There was no way to close the door, no way to run back into the light. Around her, darkness and laughter. "Couldn't find any Beta." Mara's voice hissed out of Jin's memory.
***
After a seemingly endless elevator ride spent under the severe oppression of a harpsichord and tambourine rendition of Jimmy Hendrix's Are You Experienced, the door opened into a dim hallway. Ping navigated the twisted and dividing hallways until he found 1413.
He took a deep breath and knocked. Within seconds he heard a click as a hand was set on the knob from inside. Strange, he thought, at six on Sunday morning, he'd expected to drag Ahmed out of bed.
He waited. Perhaps twenty seconds passed with no further action from inside. Behind the door, someone lurked, possibly with his hand still on the knob, probably staring at Ping through the peephole.
Waiting and watched, head filled with a repeating loop of harpsichord Hendrix, Ping felt the hall lengthen away from him in both directions. The door before him seemed to gather signiance under his stare. Small nicks and scratches traced over its faux wood surface, the documentation of previous and inscrutable violence.
Perhaps the unreality that had governed the world beneath the overpass had reached out, through sun and the freshness of morning, to touch this place. Perhaps the lurker behind the door was a part of that violent unreality. Perhaps the rational explanations that Ping came here seeking were the unreality.
He put on a more earnest smile and knocked again.
After twenty more seconds of silence from inside, Ping pulled out his badge and held it before the peephole. "Police. I'm looking for Alexander Ahmed."
There was a muted chirp from behind the door- probably Ping's credentials being verified through the lurker's tablet- followed by more waiting, apparently followed by a decision.
The door cracked open and one eye appeared beneath a patch of glossy chrome hair. "What is it?" The kid asked with a comically bad approximation of sleepy cool, his mellow expression betrayed by furtive eyes.
"May I come in?" Ping gestured toward the door.
"You have a warrant?"
"Do I need one?" Ping arched an eyebrow dubiously.
"Uh... no." The kid looked confused by the question. "Just trying to understand the parameters of our interface."
"Parameters...?" It was Ping's turn to be confused.
The kid tried for an affable chuckle, but hit nervous laughter dead center. "Come on in."
The door opened into a dim world of efficiency and clutter. The lighting was indirect and low. A combination living room and office was separated from a small kitchen by a counter with a row of cupboards above it. There was precision in the arrangement of the sparse furniture and the few tasteful hangings on the slate colored walls.
Over this order was a seemingly recent layer of short-term debris: drink containers, instant food packages, and more drink containers. Dirty dishes clustered around the sink and littered an expensive looking computer desk. The coffee table was dominated by a decorative bowl of antique metal keys. A discarded jacket was rumpled on the couch.
"All-nighter?" Ping asked,