Chapter 12: Tommy Knocking at the Door (Part II)

Of course, the class he was a TA for happened to be MAT 201 Introduction to Advanced Multivariable Differential Calculus.

Math geeks. A totally different breed from computer geeks. Yet they intersected in so many places—but would just never quite actually meet; the Euclid meets Ada Lovelace where parallel lines did in fact intersect at the horizon, but only as long as nobody moves. Elaine found math fascinating, useful, even wonderful, but really it only required a call for <math.h> and in extreme circumstances sometimes some bigger, badder library to rummage through like a toolbox of brand, new shiny gadgets. To the computer, new math was like a new cellphone.

All this had gone through Elaine’s head as she stood outside the door to Tom Barret’s office. Apparently he shared it with three other TAs. Also math geeks? They were not in—thankfully. Only his name had it’s little silver plaque slid over that noted that he was available. Office hours had been cribbed hastily on a whiteboard. She checked her cell. Ten until five. He would be leaving soon.

She needed to go in and talk to him. The case required it.

But the door was shut. And she just couldn’t will herself to open it.

How was she supposed to present herself? She wasn’t one of his students. Not that she couldn’t pretend to be a math geek—she’d known enough of them to recognize the mussed hair and muzzy eyes of the numerical thinkers, with formulae and integrals sloshing in the vitreous humors of their eyes. He probably wouldn’t buy it. She’d say something about logarithms and the jig would be up sure as a clock interrupt.

She couldn’t just give up now. She had literally just stood up the Dean of Engineering and Lindsay’s friend who was going to help pull her butt out of the fire. Why all of the sudden did she feel so much trepidation?

Adrenaline.

Cold fire ran up her arms and a chill down her spine. She’d only felt this way once before, like unseen eyes on her neck. A meditative trance fell over Elaine like a comfortable robe and she started to take an account of every muscle on her body, every goose bump, she let her senses float out from herself. She could hear the chug chug of chilled air sussurating in a nearby vent, the arrhythmic electrical spasms of a nearby florescent lamp that was in bad need of repair. The smell of Pine Sol met her nose mixed with long chain hydrocarbons of new upholstery or cheap carpeting; the lingering licorice scent of some expensive perfume tickled her memory.

Something felt wrong.

But what?

She’d been standing in front of his door for at least five minutes, and not a single person had passed her by. Nobody moved on the entire floor. She could see open doors to the left and to the right, lights on, but no sense of motion. No life.

There was no tap of keys. No shuffle of feet. No rustle of paper… No breathing. If someone was in the room in front of her they would at least be doing something.

The fear expelled, Elaine reached for the door. It rattled under her grip. Locked.

Fsck.

She checked the lock. There was both a secure-card bolt and a key. On a whim she tried the master code for the Commons Atrium. Negative. Roundly rejected she shook the door hard and shouted.

“Hey!” She slapped her on the door. “Can you hear me in there?”

No response. From the room or from any adjacent rooms. The entire floor was empty. On a Thursday? Just before five PM?

Well, she acceded, if nobody was actually on the floor—then nobody would notice her hacking the lock. Er, nobody except for Tom Barrett who might just be on the other side of the door, of course.

The Enoch reflexively in her hand, she flipped it open with a button press.

“Knock. Buffer now,” she said into the phone.

“Buffering,” the tinny reply echoed and a status indicator appeared, already ten-percent done. It ticked away as the bar filled up and then displayed a ready message. “Complete.”

She pointed the speaker of the phone away from herself, towards the door. She didn’t have earplugs; but this was an emergency. “Short fuse. Execute.”

“Short fuse,” replied the phone. “Executing in three-two—”

BRONG-NG-NG-NG!

The clash of a gong reverberated like the impact of a grand piano into a plate glass window—the sound expanded in fractal perturbations, pounding into the door and Elaine’s eardrums like a million-thousand tiny hammers. The hammers infiltrated the lock of the door and the electronics of the secure-card interface; with mindless procedural grace they coruscated over the mechanisms, the kinetic motion of air molecules plinking against metal, against electronic components.

Each propagating wave had but one purpose: to move forward and ease any locking mechanism in its path. Singularly the motions had very little effect on what they struck—but together they played the mechanical lock and the electronic lock like musical instruments. The mechanical bolt sprang open with an audible click and the rush of sensitive sound dissipated its job complete; moments later the electronic lock believed that the proper conditions had been set to release the door, and that wave too evaporated.

The door sprang open—as did a dozen others up and down the entire hall.

Elaine made a note to reminder herself to work on that. The spellcode would have to be shaped to open one lock, not every single one in a corridor. A problem with testing, she reminded herself, she’d run the simulations in soundproof rooms with only one lock.

Returning the Enoch to her hip holster she bustled inside.

Books had been strewn everywhere on the floor, along with graph paper. Most of it was thoroughly tromped like someone had stepped on it over and over again. A potted plant upended on the other side of the room leaked wet loam across the carpet. A figure—a college aged boy, wearing a dress shirt, tie, grey slacks, clean shaven slumped in his chair in front of an expensive laptop. Blood trickled from his nose and smeared along his tie in ghastly blotches of red.

“Tom?” Elaine said as she rushed across the room and tried to push him back up. His head lolled disturbingly. The scent of licorice was strong on him, but he also wore a musky cologne, the two scents battled for supremacy in the small room mixed against an overpowering scent of ozone. “Tom? Hold on, I’ll get some help.”

Two fingers against his neck—she guessed that was where the carotid artery was—and there was a pulse. Faint. But present. She had blood on her fingers.

Frog. She might know what to do. She could tell Elaine how to treat him. No. An ambulance was more important.

“Fire department please,” she said as calmly as she could and waited for the operator to switch her. “I need an ambulance at Arizona State University. Physical Science F-Wing. Room number 345. Third floor. Stat.”

The operator on the other side asked stupid questions about where she was and she found herself wishing that she could just hang up the phone and call Frog.

She had blood on her fingers. It felt useless trying to describe how to reach the building. At least the operator quickly shifted to asking questions about Tom.