Chapter 25: Magnetic Declination (Part II)

Pointed in the right direction by Roger, Zane trucked off to do his favorite type of work: inflicting mischievous damage to buildings for a good cause. Both Frog and Elaine rolled their eyes when he picked the girl’s bathroom first, poked his head in, and cackled loudly. Without a response from within, he darted inside.

“Perhaps you should keep an eye out, in case…” Roger said.

“He can handle himself.” Frog shrugged and cocked her head at him, smiling lazily. “Anyway, not like you have to explain much when walking out of a bathroom holding a bunch of metal poles. Doesn’t that speak for itself?”

“I guess so.”

Elaine went back to examining the geometry of the construct inside the closet. The conversation didn’t involve her or need her attention, so she tuned it out. The wires seemed to follow a compass rose formation, splitting out in bisected quadrants, meaning it possibly matched the cardinal points—except, she noted, it was definitely off by several degrees. Manzanita dormitory, she recalled from the schematics, happened to be off true East-West by one and a half-degrees. According to the compass on her phone, the wires didn’t match true facing and they certainly didn’t match the dorm’s facing. Whatever the geometry, it connected neither the building intrinsically or the Earth.

Frog peeked over her shoulder and nodded. “You think they’re lined up with something?”

“They are evenly spaced,” Elaine said, bowling at her bangs with a sigh. “This pattern is not haphazard, except it matches nothing. Except… You’re taking a Geology elective, aren’t you? What’s the magnetic declination for Phoenix?”

“About eleven degrees positive. Why?”

Putting a finger in line with the nearest wire bundle extending towards her, Elaine turned the phone until the N marker on the phone stood slightly off the angle of the wall. Eyeballing the difference she said, “That’s just under fifteen degrees! The wires match Magnetic North.”

“I have your poles, mi’lady,” Zane said. He gestured towards one end of the hall. “Shall I?”

“Doesn’t look like we’ve had any company,” Frog said. “Else people would have wondered why we’re obnoxiously standing in front of this open doorway. Get yer butt to work.”

Zane threw his head back, gave Roger a serious look. “She’s a harsh mistress,” he said and went off about ten meters down the hall.

Roger looked back to Elaine who had become engrossed in information received on her phone again. He moved around to get a better look at the screen and she glanced up at him, vacantly aware of his presence. The lost look still hadn’t faded from his face, but she felt proud of him in that he had managed to handle all of the really weird elements of her lifestyle so well. He’d probably do well. In fact, she realized in that moment that she fully expected to keep him. The shower curtain rod idea certainly secured his usefulness in a extraordinary situation.

“Did you mention a computer lab earlier?” he said, gesturing into the closet at the entombed construct of wires and monitors. “When talking about this computer stuff?”

“Yeah,” Elaine said. “The equipment is so grubby; I’d say it spent part of its life in one of ASU’s labs. People just don’t clean their hands before using computers. Bad enough they leave food and grime on the keys, but they smudge up the monitor. At least it’s not as bad as someone touching your glasses.”

“The first time the power went out, I happened to be in the College of Engineering lab,” Roger said. “And, Frog told me that you had your lab taken away from you by campus security. Maybe whoever is doing this is stealing equipment?”

Elaine spared a blank look for Frog.

“What?” her friend said sheepishly.

“Not stolen,” Elaine said, “moved out of obsolescence storage. The College of Ed has an entire store room of equipment that they use to replace failing peripherals, but it’s all out of date. Everything I see in here is basically that. Spares.”

Roger glanced at the shrine. “Are you sure that none of this is yours?”

“I know my equipment when I see it,” Elaine said, a tension began to etch through her shoulders as his insinuation began to sink in. “I see what you’re suggesting. I have not been back to my lab since the dean told me my access had been returned. That was only today. Perhaps we should check into that immediately. Zane!”

Her brother glanced back from down the hall. He pushed the pair of shielded goggles up from his eyes, small embers dripped from the pen in his hand as it drew quickly fading lines of orange on a pole he’d erected slightly off the center of the corridor.

“Can you and Frog finish the cage without me? I am taking Roger and checking my lab in case the equipment hasn’t been returned. Most of it has trackers installed so if our bad guy has indeed taken any, I’ll be able to find the other nests. If this isn’t the only one.”

Zane shrugged and gave Frog a slow, considering look. After a moment he quirked a smile. “You can take Frog with you. I’ll have this completed in a jiff.” He glanced at his watch. “I’d say ten minutes at most and this’ll be shut down.”

“Huh,” Frog said. “What time is it?”

“Almost seven o’clock,” Zane said from down the hall.

“I think that concert is supposed to happen soon,” Frog said. “The benefit on Hayden Lawn for Emily Early.”

Elaine rewound the events of the day, trying to gauge the time difference between her then and now, and how much had changed about her case with Emily Early since she took it. Certainly she’d received less communication from this client than many others, but it was hard not to understand why—Emily did belong to a class of person totally different than her own, and she had a busy lifestyle. Then again, Elaine pondered why Emily would throw such a large, noticeable event when she feared this stalker. Tom Barret in the hospital. Emily out on stage. Equipment stolen from ASU and put to obviously emblematic occult uses. Gremlins loose and scattering around the campus. Too many variables in play, all collapsing towards a yet unrevealed point.

Perhaps she needed to call Emily and have her call off this concert. It coincided too neatly with the other events.

Then it struck her: the phone hadn’t rung in the past hour. Since even before she entered the building.

“Why hasn’t Hadaly contacted me yet?” She flipped her phone around from scanning the room and switched it to phone mode. “Hm… The Enoch cannot find signal.”

“I don’t have cell reception either,” Zane said.

Moments later everyone had cell phones in hand, looking at their reception bars. Nil across the board.

“RF suppression?” Zane said.

“The gremlins,” Elaine said.