Out of the Black - Lee Doty [45]
A few minutes later, Captain Hafiz called for a little more sadism. He'd received an electronic notification of the test results, so he'd called to point out that now there was absolutely no excuse. He told Ping to go home and try to sleep the stupid off. Tomorrow would supposedly entail some exciting deskwork involving parking violations.
Of course Ping knew better. His Captain liked to blow hard, but not long. Tomorrow all would be forgiven- that's just how he worked.
He checked his thumb watch: eleven in the morning. He was exhausted; he was starving. He had time for both food and sleep. The Feds and the Captain had relieved him of his current case, and he had ten hours before he was supposed to be in the Rosemont college library.
Though Ping now had enough presence of mind to realize he wasn't going there to meet 'Sparky', he had a hunch that he would be glad he went.
Of course, that might just be the cornflakes talking.
***
Anne hustled through the door and into the nurses' lounge. She had exactly negative thirty-five minutes to get clocked in and she had a hunch she wasn't going to make it on time.
She hurried to the small bank of half-sized lockers on the far wall, located hers near the center of the top rack, swiped her thumb across the lock pad and jerked on the handle. Two sounds registered essentially at the same time: the failure buzz of the biometric lock, and the pop of the locker opening. Then came an oddly lucid moment: Anne stood, holding the opened locker in her right hand, her left hand still holding her jacket, while three small irregular pieces of metal seemed to float lazily toward the ground.
The bits of metal hit the ground with three distinct ticks and a minimal amount of bouncing. The next five seconds passed with no further motion as Anne tried to assess what had just happened. Finally, she turned her attention to her locker. The handle was slightly bent and the door itself bowed out in the middle where the handle was attached. The metal on the inside of the door at the top and bottom where the latches had been was bent and broken- apparently the metal bits on the ground were the missing parts of the latches.
She swung the locker closed with a labored creaking sound. The hinges were bent and the door no longer closed completely. The e n swung back open twice as she tried to get it to stay closed. She banged the door with her palm to try to seat it, but the door bent too far, now bowing in at the center. The door stayed closed, but the top and bottom corners protruded perhaps three centimeters.
"Aw crap!" she hissed, looking around the empty lounge.
Blushing furiously, she pried at the bottom corner of the door. Finally, her fingers found purchase and she managed to get the locker door open. Unfortunately, she also managed to break the bottom hinge and further bent the bottom of the door outward.
She dropped her coat on the floor so she could work with both hands and took a deep, not so calming, breath before continuing. She gently opened the door as far as possible so she could examine the damage to the hinges. As she did so, she noticed the contents of her locker: a king-sized Snickers bar, half a six-pack of Mega Slim Quick chocolate flavored shakes, and half of an eight pack of Diet Coke.
Aw, she thought, private stuff- secret stuff. She reached down with her left hand to grab her coat, planning to throw it over the locker's contents, but when she stooped down, she heard another pair of snaps and winced. The detached locker door hung in her right hand, it's final hinge broken.
Several more seconds passed as she reeled between denial and deep anxiety, rocking from foot to foot and tapping the broken locker door against her hip. Then she had a hopeful idea, and pinched her right forearm with her left hand.
"Ow!" she whispered as her pinch resulted in pain rather than waking.
She jumped when her tablet