| |
A dark object soared over the mountain range.
It dropped like a meteor then glided toward a sprawling white building tucked into the foothills. Legs extended, the galloping of hooves slowly descended into a wide courtyard.
Three elven tumbled off the back of the snorting reindeer. Dane, Duke and Deke rolled in unison. They stood back to back to back beneath their travel companion’s nose.
Images of the Southern California home scrolled in their vision. The remains of grapevines lined the landscape. Wind turbines stood on the distant mountainside. Blades that once churned in the downdraft now stood still.
The house was a very modern, very private abode that was narrow and long. Two wings bracketed a courtyard of weeds that was once a finely manicured panel of turf. The walls were mostly glass. Strands of dead lights were wrapped around posts and dangled from the eves. Some had pooled on the ground like discarded rope.
It was dark inside.
They let their instrumentation collect data before offering the reindeer food. There were no indications of a human pulse in the vicinity, no recent tracks or heat signatures or elevated pockets of carbon dioxide. Their journey had been long and arduous. Despite the urgency, they avoided the timesnapper for now. They had reached their limits.
In regular time, they worked fast.
Duke and Deke went to opposite ends of the building. Dane stood at the back door. A circular weave of branches was attached to the glass with a faded bow. It had probably looked festive, once upon a time.
It was a sliding door with a touchpad lock. He placed a disk on the black panel. Red lights circulated around it. A few moments later, they turned blue.
The door slid halfway open.
Dane stepped through a cobweb. Without the aid of moon and stars, he reached into one of many pockets and retrieved an object the size of a gumdrop. It levitated from his gloved palm. Imbedded lenses snicked over his eyes.
The room was bathed in a strange light.
There were no neighbors to see him, no passersby to witness the intrusion. If someone should spy them with a telescope, they would not see the infrared gumdrop or the elven it followed.
The décor was as modern as the architecture. Abstract paintings hung on the wall; sculpture was displayed in the center hallway. Dust had settled like a morning flurry.
Dane reached into his bag. This time he threw a handful of particles into the air. The sandy material sparkled as it spread out but never hit the floor. It gathered around him like a cloud of tiny insects. As he took a step inside, they covered his tracks and neutralized any trace of evidence—every shed skin cell or follicle of hair.
There was a magazine left open on the couch. A coffee mug was on the table, a dark stain on the bottom. A ten-foot-tall Christmas tree was centered in the room. Garland sagged on the barren branches. A few ornaments were still attached, but many had shattered on the floor.
Faded gifts were piled around it.
Duke’s and Deke’s viewpoints were displayed on each side of his vision. Duke was looking at a room with a large hospital bed. The sheets were bunched up and the railing on one side folded down. The bedside tables were cluttered but not with medicine bottles. It was canisters and patches and injection guns, the kind of spent technology more likely to be found in a lab than a bedroom.
Deke was in the kitchen. There were curious markings on the door. A handprint was scarred on the touchpad panel. The door had since been secured with a padlock. Nothing Deke couldn’t pick.
The same handprint was branded on cabinets and one on the counter. The refrigerator was left open. Wrappings were tattered on the shelves along with mice droppings. The handle was broken in half.
Dane ventured down the hallway. The swishing of the track dusters followed him into an office. The blinds were drawn. The gumdrop light turned the walls shades of gray. A peculiar aroma hung in the room, like a volcano had burped through the vents.
The chair was pushed back from the desk. The padding was gone. The leather had been seared off. The edges were curled and clumping. Lifeless monitors were on the wall. A keyboard lay upside down. The keys were melted and the mouse disfigured. There was a deep handprint on the desk.
It looked like a brand.
Dane pulled a black cube from his pocket and placed it on the computer. A green light began flashing. The cube powered up the dormant computer. Dane unplugged the monitor before it cast light across the room.
While the black cube downloaded the computer files, he looked through family photos standing in formation. They were mostly taken on vacations where the sun was bright, the sand was warm and the water blue. They were smiling—the woman with her son.
Dane leaned over and avoided disturbing the layer of dust on the desktop. The track dusters were already working hard. He pinched a plastic bag from an inside pocket and held it up. Inside was a kinky hair follicle. Analysis had led them here. But as he held it up to the photo, it did not appear to match.
The woman had blonde hair.
In another photo, she was standing next to a woman with a sisterly resemblance. They each held the handle of an oversized pair of scissors. Behind them, a crew of scientists was gathered in front of a brand-new building.
An Avocado logo was over the door.
Duke and Deke were uploading their scans. They were picking up something out of the ordinary. Dane activated a Geiger-Mueller detector and ran the data through analysis. There was a unique radioactive isotope in the house.
He waved the detector over the handprint.
When the black cube was done downloading all the data, Dane snapped a memory still of the photo for Duke and Deke to examine. They would analyze the computer contents—the pictures, emails, documents, and social media trails—along with the unique radioactive isotope on the way to their next stops.
Avocado had several locations.