Out of the Black - Lee Doty [51]
About five meters away, another Harm was screaming bloody murder as Wyler vied for position with his needle.
***
"I really want to chop something with this!" Rae's excited voice came from behind Ping, where she was swinging the sword around quickly but somewhat inexpertly.
They both turned to her, amused. "Ain't she great?" Ahmed whispered.
"I have no official comment, Mr. Ahmed."
"Alex, please."
Ping smiled and nodded.
"Ivo called it 'Neural Clarity', but I think 'Amp' is more descriptive."
"So, you put two kinds of whammy into the cameo. She puts it on and the rest of the free world sees your woman in a new light and she gets quicker too?"
"Quicker, more agile, more coordinated- sharper. It's a Cast that refines and clarifies the interface between her mind and the rest of her motor nervous system. Forging it into the silver was... challenging."
"So, if I put on her necklace, I get cuter and deadlier?"
"Nope. It's tailored for her. You put it on and you start to look weird from the perception Cast... I mean vomiting weird. Then you get dizzy from the ill-fitting Amp... vomiting dizzy."
Ping shook his head. "So you Spellified the keys? But how, they were across the room..."
"Nah, I Cast you. You've gotta understand, there are Casts and Forges. I Cast you, but I Forged the cameo. A Cast is like a spell. A Forge embeds a Cast into the fabric or nature of an object."
"Ah!" Ping said, laying on his best Irish accent. "So ya spend all day a'castin' fer rainbows, but ya Forge yer little lucky charms do ya?"
Rae snickered. "You do a mean Irish."
"You haven't seen my mean Irish yet."
Alex's tablet chirped for the second time in the past two minutes. "What's that? You getting messaged from other nerds in the wizards-only chat room?"
Alex was looking at his tablet. His stylus was spinning around his fingers again. "Nope... I've got a camera cluster mounted above the study area outside. Got it alarmed to notify me when any of the doors open. In the past couple of minutes we've had two visitors."
"Innocent looking, book loving visitors, right babe?" Rae stopped swinging the sword.
"Well, now that you mention it, they're both thirtyish, in top physical shape, and though they came in separately, they seem to shop the same Ninja Gap for clothes." Alex shook his head. "They're searching the aisles, but neither is looking at the shelves. I think we might be in trouble."
The tablet chirped again. There was a moment of silence.
"Well?" Ping said at last.
"Another one." Alex said, closing his eyes and angling his head away with a theatrical wince, "Same approximate description, but meaner looking and slightly more female."
"Well, at least we're trapped." Ping said, looking about the room.
"Yes dear, we'll always have trapped." Rae put her hand on Alex's shoulder and gave it an encouraging squeeze, followed by a slightly less charitable shake. "Good job picking a secret rendezvous with no back door, honey!" She gave him a warm smile and a solid punch in the shoulder.
"Ow!" Alex rubbed his shoulder, but he smiled at her as if he'd only felt the encouraging squeeze thhere's not much to do now but wait and hope they aren't absolutely certain we're on this floor."
"Hope they just go away? This is our best plan... swell." Rae said, handing the sword to Ping and reaching under her jacket to check her concealed pistol.
Ping retracted the blade and shrugged his shoulders. "Hey, it might be nothing. Here, let me have a look." He moved around behind Alex and peered at the camera feed on his tablet. "Uh oh."
"What?" Rae and Alex said in unison.
"These people obviously got low scores at ominous suppression school. If you try hard, you can almost hear the suspense music."
Rae had moved into position over Alex's other shoulder. They both nodded.
The tablet chirped again as the elevator door opened. A man who looked like an aging surfer-turned-banker stepped in.
"Oh boy,"