Chapter 33: Case Closed (Part II)

Frog set the tray down on the nearby burnished metal workbench and took a seat between the siblings. All three took a quiet moment to themselves as they sipped their respective drinks and mulled over their own thoughts. The usual scents of the room slowly began to reassert themselves over the sweaty smell of Zane’s uniform and the sharp aroma of the vanilla, bringing Elaine back into a more settled mental landscape with the gentle smell of clean metal and CPU ozone.

“You almost made an enemy out of Emily back there,” Frog said into her tea. “I have to hand it to you; giving her and Tom the iPhone in the end. Aren’t you concerned that in spite of Chance’s exhaustion he might once again start the whole shenanigans again?”

“If he does,” Elaine said. “I didn’t leave them the iPhone without a backdoor and a ripcord protocol. It will make it easier to shut him down if we need to.”

“Well. That’s that.” Zane set his mug down and brushed his legs off. He opened up one of the drawers in the workbench to withdraw a coil of copper wire and a small striking hammer. He counted paces across the floor to a series of designs sporting a sequence of concentric circles. He knelt down and measured out wire onto the fifth expansion of the circle. “So Frog,” he said. “Curious minds would like to know, how did Zach take his…uh, beating at the hands of a girl?”

“It’s not the first time I’ve pummeled him, you know,” Frog said. She chuckled and shook her head. “Elaine’s little limbic reset trick actually seems to have fogged his memory somewhat. He didn’t even recall getting punched or trying to arrest us. In fact I had him stammering out objections right up until I unlocked him from the handcuffs.”

“If he didn’t recall trying to obstruct us,” Elaine said, “what did he think happened that he ended up in his own restraints?”

Frog ran her finger over the rim of her mug of tea. “Ah well, I played the mute and let him stammer questions. I left him with his imagination.”

“Brutal,” Zane said.

“Unnecessary,” Elaine said. “I will explain to him the circumstances the next time we speak.”

Zane tapped at the wire on the floor a few more times to press it neatly into the circumference of the loop on the floor—which inset almost perfectly to accommodate the wire—leaving a very small space. After ensuring it set flush with the floor by eyeballing it, he ran his finger over it. Certain the job felt proper, he gestured for Frog to come assist.

Together, they pushed the hand truck with the crate over the copper loop and the grounding glyph, set it in place, and pulled the dolly away. After a few minor adjustments through firm nudges and hard shoves of the crate, they managed to makes sure the entire square sat circumscribed by the wire loop.

“That’s as good as it’s gonna get,” Frog said.

Setting her mug down, Elaine circled the box and nodded.

“Close it up,” she said.

Zane knelt down next to the open space in the loop and dribbled a bit of copper-colored solder into the break. With a whispered word as he did so the loop—and the glyph within—activated with a crackle of arcane energies. A rush of air blew out from the wire loop and Elaine felt the hairs on the back of her arms fall to rest once again; the leakage from the crate could not pass beyond the grounding circle within.

Preparing for what certainly must come next, Zane closed the door to the rune-cage area and pulled all the latches, completing the circuit and sealing the room from outside energies. After he’d done, he gave his sister the thumbs up.

Elaine pulled her goggles down, keyed up the recording equipment, and grabbed a pry bar from a nearby workbench sporting such tools. Frog and Zane followed suit, both sporting equally giddy grins while they hefted the solid metal instruments.

“Everyone ready? Let’s crack this thing open. “Momma wants a new anodyne relay.”